


Got fire for a heart, i'm not scared of the dark

by geewhizmo



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Aromantic Character, Exotic Pets, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, M/M, OT5 Friendship, Pining, Slow Burn, Strangers to Friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-24 14:23:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 45,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10743495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geewhizmo/pseuds/geewhizmo
Summary: “I dunno,” Zayn mutters. “I just think you’re much more in the business of flying than falling, y’know?”That’s not entirely true,Niall thinks.I’m falling for you, aren’t I?*Niall leaves home for the first time and moves to a big city. There, he meets a group of people who will shape the course of the rest of his life. He tries (and fails) not to fall in love with one of them.Also, they all have superpowers.





	Got fire for a heart, i'm not scared of the dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hungerpunch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hungerpunch/gifts).



> I started writing this over a year ago (january 2016 i think) and it’s been a long and bumpy ride, but i’m glad to finally shove this out into the world. (sorry for the wait lo, i hope u still enjoy it!)
> 
> Thank you to everyone that’s helped me on this journey, everyone who ever offered me any kind of encouragement, advice, and support, or just let me whine about it on end - i deeply appreciate every bit of it, (and you) so, so much <3
> 
> A special shout out to my betas & personal cheerleaders, B and Sav, who were so beyond amazing and incredible, i probably wouldn’t have been able to finish this without them, i’m so grateful to u both :’) 
> 
> And my wonderful artist Sabine, you were a pleasure to work with and i absolutely adore what you came up with!
> 
> You can see the gorgeous cover art she made along with the rebloggable fic masterpost [here](http://sleepymouses.tumblr.com/post/160053032935/got-fire-for-a-heart-im-not-scared-of-the-dark), as well as another wonderful cover art she made for my fanmix which can be found [here](http://fromadifferentphase.tumblr.com/post/160051846675/got-fire-for-a-heart-im-not-scared-of-the-dark)
> 
> Disclaimer: don't know em*, don't own em, pls don't show em! (*1d/any of their affiliates)
> 
> Title from drag me down by 1d
> 
> (Cw for some minor hero-typical violence, and mild alcohol consumption)

Of course, it’s not as though Niall intended to spend so much time gawking at the attractive stranger in the corner of the _Groundstown_ coffee shop, but he found himself entranced the moment he walked through the door.

The stranger in question has golden brown skin and lavender hair that darkens to inky black at the roots and cascades like a lazy waterfall over one side of his undercut.

His eyes are half closed as he shuffles into a corner with his drink, hugging it through fingerless gloves. Niall didn’t know it was possible for someone to look so soft in a leather jacket studded with spikes along the shoulders.

“ _Niall_.” Niall realizes he’s been caught staring and snaps his head around to the barista, Jessi. Judging by the tone of his voice, it’s not the first time he’s called Niall’s name.

“Oh, uh, thanks.” Niall plays it cool.

Jessi hands over Niall’s drink with a grin containing far too much eyebrow-raising to have missed where exactly Niall was looking. Niall notices, but pretends not to. He’s only been into the shop a couple times so far, but already his face is familiar enough that Jessi will have no problem teasing if Niall gives him the opportunity.

He sneaks a glance back into the corner of the shop when he almost reaches the door.

The cute stranger is looking back. Niall freezes and almost drops his drink.

The stranger coughs into his hand, and Niall can’t tell if he’s got a bit of a cold or he’s trying to disguise a laugh. He’s not smiling exactly, but Niall knows ‘ _fuck off_ ’ faces and this is very far from one of them.

In fact, now would be the perfect opportunity to walk over and introduce himself. Niall’s about to do just that when the stranger’s cell phone goes off.

He fiddles frantically to get his bag open while the _Powerpuff Girls Theme Song_ rings out at full volume in the little shop. Several customers turn to look, and more than one of them send disapproving stares.

 _That’s very unnecessary_ , Niall thinks, frowning back at them until they turn away. It’s clear by how the attractive stranger is glaring at the bag with irate mortification that he probably didn’t leave the sound that loud on purpose. That, or the ringtone. Maybe both.

Finally, the phone is freed and the stranger ducks off towards the bathroom to take the call. Someone taps Niall on the shoulder. He realizes that he’s blocking the door and quickly steps to the side. It would be a little odd to hang around for the cute stranger to come back, Niall supposes, twiddling his fingers against the cup.

It’s not as though the cute stranger asked Niall to come say hi, since they don’t actually know each other, and besides, Niall really ought to go pick up groceries anyways. So he leaves.

Niall’s apartment may not be the fanciest, but it was the only one available in Niall’s current price range that also allowed pets. Plus, it’s a five minute walk to the nearest bus stop, two and a half if you run.

It’s perfectly functional though; there’s hot water, electricity, a microwave, and a little stove. There’s even a washer and dryer situated in a basement that could be an awful lot creepier as basements go. The wifi’s pretty shite most of the time, but that’s what coffee shops are for.

Niall drops the groceries onto the counter and spends a few moments debating whether he should crank up the thermostat a few notches. He resolves his dilemma by making hot chocolate and grabbing a sweater. Niall flicks on the kettle and heads down the little hallway to the bedroom.

“Honey, I’m home!” Niall announces, propping the door open with a shoe, knowing Beatrice will come out when she’s ready.

Niall heads back to the kitchen and starts unloading groceries. A minute later there’s the familiar pitter-patter of tiny hedgehog paws on the floor, and Beatrice rounds the corner.

She makes a beeline towards Niall as soon as she spots him, reaching up to claw at Niall’s ankles. Niall bends down to scoop her up before she tries to climb up through the inside of a pant leg. She’s gotten up to the knee a few times before, and it’s never pleasant. Her quills always get stuck the wrong way, and it tickles like nothing else.

“Hey you!” Beatrice snuffles around Niall’s palms, ducking her nose into the spaces between his fingers. “Did ya miss me?” Beatrice, having found no treats hidden within Niall’s hands, peers up expectantly, flicking her tongue out over her nose for good measure.

“Sorry,” Niall sighs, “I didn’t make it to the pet shop today, so no bugs for you tonight. Just your usual kibble.” Niall pushes a finger through her quills to scratch behind an ear. “We’ll go there sometime this week though, okay? I’ll sneak you in on the bus.”

Niall tucks Beatrice into his hoodie pouch while he finishes with the groceries and starts on dinner. One of the cupboards is well over Niall’s reach, and the two stools nearby are dangerously wobbly to stand on, but no matter.

Niall’s toes press off the floor until he drifts up into the air to hover in front of the cupboard.

There’s a certain giddiness which comes with floating, a giddiness that’s never quite gone away, even though Niall’s been doing it since before he could walk.

Niall probably could’ve gotten a better place if he was willing to have roommates, could’ve even moved to another town where he already knew people. But it’s just so nice, being able to float around the house without thinking about anyone else’s reactions, whether they find it unnerving or worry that Niall will fall.

Niall’s mum was very much in the latter category, so he tried not to float around the house too much if there was a chance she could see it. Niall’s dad worried too sometimes, Niall could tell, even if he never really voiced it out loud.

When he was little, his parents realized they couldn’t prevent the floating from happening when they weren’t around to look after Niall, so they baby-proofed their entire house; cushioning every sharp edge no matter how high up it was. It felt like living in a giant bouncy castle, and Niall loved it.

Still, Niall had always felt a longing in his bones to find something more than the tiny town he grew up in, where so many of his family members before him had lived out their entire lives without ever straying far from their birthplace. As nice as it was, as much as he liked the simplicities of a life lived in comfortable consistency, there was something constricting about it too.

Now, here Niall is all on his own (with the exception of Beatrice, of course) in a new town, a city really, that’s hours away from his own. This is a place where Niall has ties to nobody else, like a kite without any string to keep it tethered down to the earth.

It’s terrifying and maybe a little exhilarating, too.

*

Niall ends up getting mealworms _and_ crickets from the pet shop a few days later.

The shop is a twenty minute bus ride away from Niall’s flat. Beatrice spends most of the ride napping, escaping everyone’s notice smuggled inside Niall’s hoodie pouch.

The shop is almost empty when Niall steps inside. Empty of people, that is, as Niall can hear the chirping of birds in the back and there are several furry creatures scurrying about in the pens of sawdust a few feet away from the front entrance.

There is also a tall boy kneeling down next to a pen of bunnies. He’s so preoccupied with the little creatures, he blends right in and Niall doesn’t even realize he’s there until he nearly trips over him.

“Oh, hey there!” The boy straightens up in a slow, lumbering motion, cracking his back and smiling at Niall. “Anything I can help you with?”

“I think I’d just like to browse for a bit, thanks.” Niall might as well take some time to familiarize himself with this place after coming all this way. Plus, bugs are gross, and Niall would rather leave that to the very last minute.

“Sure thing.” Niall squints to read the worker's name tag, but it’s either written in very wonky handwriting, or it’s upside down. Possibly both. “Just holler if you need anything,” the worker adds, already going back to crouching down with the bunnies again, cooing at the little creatures.

Niall shakes his head, perplexed as he shuffles around him to investigate the rest of the store. He doesn’t quite understand why people keep rabbits as pets. Sure, he can admit they look cute, but they don’t really _do_ anything. Probably one of his top pet peeves, rabbits are.

He goes through a section of reptiles and amphibians fairly quickly, since they keep the bugs in the same place too, and Niall would prefer to spend as little time as possible thinking about them.

When he steps into the aviary section, the birds quiet down their chattering for just a moment, as though taking the time to look over the newcomer before starting up again. A lovebird in the cage closest to Niall hops from its perch to cling to the bars at the front of the cage.

“Hi there,” Niall says softly. The lovebird cheeps and tilts its head until it’s peering at Niall very attentively from upside down. Niall tilts his head to mirror the bird’s to the best of his ability, drifting a couple inches off the ground.

“Birds of a feather, eh?” He jokes. The bird cheeps and bobs its head a few times before Niall moves on.

There’s also a fish section at the back of the store. Niall spends several minutes just standing there admiring the various tanks with softly bubbling water and little swirls of colour swishing around inside of them. _It’s very peaceful_ , Niall thinks. He could easily spend hours here watching the fish.

Niall’s never had the best of luck with fish, or he might’ve been tempted to get a couple. When he had them as a kid, he would spend hours kneeling in front of the tank, marveling how they moved through the water. It reminded Niall of the way he moved through the air, even more than birds, who have to flap their wings to get above the ground.

Niall just _flies_. It feels about as effortless as breathing, maybe even more so.

Bea starts getting restless after a while; scratching around inside Niall’s pocket. He reluctantly makes his way back to the small furry animal area.

The worker is sitting cross-legged on the floor now, a large rabbit cradled in the nook of his arm. It looks fast asleep and Niall would feel a little guilty disturbing them, except, well. He does actually need his assistance. Niall’s pretty sure he isn’t allowed to just take the bugs out of their tanks, even if he wanted to. And he really, really doesn’t.

“Hey, me again.” The boy slowly tilts his head to squint up at Niall. “Could I get your help with something?”

“Why yes, of course!” Despite the enthusiasm of his words, he frowns for a long moment, as though he’d rather not move at all. But he does reluctantly get up and put the rabbit back in its pen.

Niall can’t help wrinkling his nose as the boy rambles on about the nutritional benefits of all the different bugs. It’s icky, but Bea loves them, and Niall loves Bea, so what can he do?

As the worker leads them back to the counter (with a box of crickets _and_ mealworms, because apparently it’s discount day), Niall realizes that the name tag is indeed upside down and points it out.

“Ugh, not again, Lou!” Right side up, the tag reads _Harry_.

“Sorry, Lou who?”

“Oh, uh. A friend of mine came in to visit me this afternoon. I’m sure it was him that did it, but that was like, hours ago, and I must have looked so silly to everyone else that came in today.” Harry sighs. “Thanks, you’re the first one to mention it…?” Harry trails off and tilts his head questioningly.

“It’s Niall.”

“Very nice to meet you, Niall. I’m Harry. Well, I guess you knew that already.” He bags the boxes of bugs. “Now Niall, will that be everything for you today?”

“Yeah, that’ll do, thanks.” Niall pulls out his wallet. “How could you miss someone messing with your name tag, though? It’s literally right under your nose.”

Harry fumbles counting out Niall’s change. “Um, I dunno. He’s got very quick hands, is all.” He pushes the bag towards Niall. “Anyways, who’s the lucky recipient of these tasty treats you’re getting?”

“Huh?”

“Who are you feeding the bugs to? I take it you’re not keeping them as pets.”

“Oh no, god no!” Niall shivers. “They’re for my, um.” Niall pauses, knowing most establishments tend to frown upon sneaking animals into them. But this _is_ a pet shop, for goodness sakes, and Niall finds himself pulling Bea out of his pocket and holding her out for Harry to see. “They’re for my hedgehog, Beatrice.”

“Your hedgehog!” Harry exclaims, clapping his hands over his face. Yeah, Niall needn’t have worried. “Oh, what a darling little thing. May I pet her?”

“Sure.”

Instead of walking around the counter to reach her, as most people would, Harry sprawls out over the top of it. Niall startles a little, but offers Harry the hedgehog.

Harry reaches out with one finger to stroke up her back, but immediately bristles and pulls back.

“Ouch, she’s so poky!”

“Here,” Niall says, trying very hard not to laugh at the exaggerated frown on Harry’s face. “It’s easier if you go with the flow from head to tail, like this. That’s the way her quills grow, so they don’t stick up against your hand, y’know?”

“Ooh yes, I see.” Harry looks ridiculously pleased at not getting poked this time and beams up at Niall. “That’s a lot like petting a cat, isn’t it? Just with fur instead of quills. I like cats,” Harry adds, glancing back down at Beatrice. “Do _you_ like cats?”

“They’re alright, I suppose,” Niall answers, assuming Harry’s addressing him despite his intense eye contact with Bea. “I’ve never really had the chance to form much of an opinion about them; too many allergies in the family.”

“Ah, that’s rough. You’re not allergic yourself though, are you?”

“Nope. Why, do I give off that vibe or something?”

Harry shrugs and taps the side of his nose mysteriously. “Just a hunch. I’m quite an expert on all things cats.”

“I bet you would be, yeah, working here.”

Harry just hums in response and smiles softly, as though he’s just remembered an inside joke with himself.

“Would it be alright for me to hold her?” Harry asks suddenly.

Niall nods. “Here, hold out your hands.”

Harry does as instructed and Niall plops Beatrice into his cupped palms, which look like they could easily fit two more hedgehogs between them. Beatrice’s nose wiggles about in the air as she takes in her new surroundings.

“This is amazing,” Harry gasps softly, whispering as though in awe. “I’ve never met a hedgehog before!” He beams up at Niall, looking like a little kid seeing snow for the first time. “When did you get her? How long have you had her? What’s your favourite thing about her?”

They talk for a while longer until eventually Niall has to leave the pet shop, but not before Harry assures him that they’re both welcome back anytime.

“Even though,” Harry adds in a theatrical whisper, “the boss isn’t exactly fond of people bringing their pets in here, but like, I think it’s great!  And I mean, it’s not as though she’s about to break lose any second and terrorize the shop or anything, so. Just don’t tell him I said that.”

Niall mimes zipping his lips shut, and Harry does the same. Then he quickly unzips his lips to add, “Not that your hedgehog is the only reason you have to come back here, of course! Cos like, you seem pretty great company to chat with yourself, too! So like, you don’t have to feel obligated to buy stuff every time you come in or anything.” Harry smacks his forehead. “Definitely do not tell my boss I said that.”

Niall chuckles and solemnly crosses his heart.

There’s a bit of a bounce to Niall’s step when he leaves. His folks were delighted when Niall told them he got a job at a grocery store last week. They’ll be over the moon when they hear he may have made a friend.

He ducks into _Groundstown_ on his way home, intent on getting a square of shortbread for dessert that night, and oh, there’s that cute stranger again, that’s cool. He’s brought a mug from home today, by the looks of it. Niall can’t quite make out the design, but there’s something about the bright colours that seems almost nerdy.

Niall considers wandering over to say hi, but he’s wearing headphones, the universally recognizable sign (recognizable to everyone that is, except for straight dudes, Niall’s noticed) for _Do Not Disturb_. So Niall goes up to the counter instead.

Jessi’s hair is twisted in long coils that hang down past his shoulders today. The last time Niall saw him, his hair looked like a soft, black cloud floating around his head. Black hair is so versatile, it’s honestly magical.

Niall doesn’t miss the way Jessi’s eyes keep darting towards the stranger in the corner behind Niall as he wraps up the shortbread to go.

Niall rolls his eyes. Sheesh. He really hopes Jessi doesn’t think he’s being subtle.

It could be Niall’s imagination, but as he’s walking by, he could swear he feels the stranger’s eyes on him, just for a moment. But Niall’s already halfway out the door by then, and it would be weird to turn around and wave back.

 _Next time_ , he tells himself. _Next time I’m going to go right up and say hi to him_.

 *

 The next time Niall spots Cute Stranger (and sadly, he has thought about him enough to warrant the capitalization), he’s just leaving the shop as Niall’s walking up to it. He seems to be in a hurry, upper body tilted forward and walking as fast as he can without breaking into a full-on sprint down the sidewalk. It reminds Niall vaguely of Naruto.

As they turn the corner, Niall could almost swear he sees a flash of something blue sparkle above Cute Stranger’s head. Niall blinks and shakes his head, but he’s already gone. He supposes he might’ve been wearing some sort of sapphire-y hair clip that caught the sunlight the right way.

“You’re late,” Jessi remarks when Niall steps up to the counter.

“Didn’t realize there was a set time I was supposed to be here,” Niall grumbles, perhaps a bit snarkier than he meant to.

Jessi either doesn’t notice Niall’s mood or doesn’t take it personally, because he draws a flower in the foam of Niall’s drink the same as usual. Niall doesn’t think he would, if he was really pissed at someone. He smiles gratefully when he hands over the drink and drops a couple dollars in the tip jar.

Niall’s tired. Some kids knocked over a whole stack of soup cans at the store today, mere seconds after Niall had finished stacking them. As if that wasn’t enough, Niall caught a few of the cans with his toes, and they’re _still_ smarting.

He also had to deal with an obnoxious middle-aged woman who made a scene because she didn’t like the _texture_ of the loaf of bread she bought a week ago. She demanded a refund, but when Niall asked to see the bread, she huffed and said that she ate it already, throwing up her hands as though that should have been obvious from the start. Niall still doesn’t know how he got her to leave in the end.

Work is rarely the highlight of his day, sometimes exceptionally so. It’s not a surprise then, that he really doesn’t feel up to dealing with a whole lot of human interaction today.

Except, well. Niall remembers that he did promise Harry that he’d swing by sometime this week. They’re texting each other now, Harry having snagged Niall’s phone on his third visit to the shop and added himself in the contacts as _Harry the Very Bestest :3._

“Gonna send you so many memes!” Harry’d snickered, looking far too gleeful for someone to be making such a threat.

Niall thumbs open his phone and scrolls through to read Harry’s last non-meme related text (he wasn’t joking about that), asking him to pop by to pick up a surprise this week.

That was Monday, and somehow it’s already Friday. Niall’s tired, but he would feel bad if he didn’t follow through on his promise, so he finishes the drink as quickly as he can before climbing on the bus. Maybe whatever surprise Harry’s got for Niall will cheer him up too.

Niall almost misses the stop and climbs out of his seat so hastily that he trips getting out of the bus and lands painfully on the sidewalk. He catches most of the fall with his hands, which start stinging immediately. One of his knees is smarting too, the good one, funnily enough. Niall spits out a few choice words at the uneven pavement as he gets back up. Some days just seem to have it in for him.

There’s a big line of customers in the shop already, and Harry’s apparently the only one working tonight. Niall certainly doesn’t envy him the task of frantically running around helping everyone while simultaneously trying to get all the closing duties finished. He didn’t even think about the time before, but he realizes now that the shop’s supposed to close in twenty minutes.

Niall could just leave, really, but he’s come all this way already, and it wouldn’t be worth it to turn back now, especially after his spill getting off the bus. He’ll just hang out of the way until Harry’s done and hope it’s not too much of a bother for him, whatever it is that he’s got for Niall.

Harry almost crashes into him just then, hauling a big bag of wood shavings over his shoulder that obscures his face.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Harry readjusts the bag until he’s got proper visibility again. “Niall! I didn’t see you there. I’ve got your thing in the back if you don’t mind waiting a few minutes?”

Niall waves him off. “It’s fine Harry, go on with-” He doesn’t get a chance to finish because Harry’s eyes widen at the sight of Niall’s palms.

“Oh dear, you’re bleeding!” Harry looks for a place to drop the wood shavings, but there isn’t one, and he’s still got several customers to help and/or nicely kick out before he closes.

“Harry! It’s seriously fine, you’re too busy. I can just borrow a bandaid or something when you’re done.” It’s just a tiny patch of skin, hardly a cause for panic.

Harry doesn’t seem to listen, or perhaps he does, because he starts beckoning someone over.

Niall vaguely recognizes them as someone he’s seen Harry chatting with a couple times before in low, hushed voices. Niall hasn’t the foggiest what about, they only ever seem to resume their conversations once he’s out of earshot. Of course, it’s none of his business anyways, so it hardly matters.

“Niall, this is Liam. Liam, this is Niall.” Harry swings the bag as he introduces them, and Liam ducks and sidesteps to avoid it with remarkably practised ease. “Liam, can you take Niall to the back? There’s a first aid kit in the top left cupboard in the staffroom.”

“Yeah, of course.” Liam nods quickly.

“Just skinned myself getting off the bus, is all,” Niall mutters, not that anyone’s listening. “I can handle it.” But Harry’s rushing off again without another word, leaving Niall with Liam, who’s eyeing him with intense concern now.

“You can just show me where to go if you want,” Niall offers hopefully. “You’ve probably got other stuff you’re busy with.” Niall hates being babied, hates being made to feel like he can’t look after himself.

“No, not really,” Liam says. “I was just waiting for Harry to finish up.”

“Oh.” Well, it was worth a try.

Liam tilts their head thoughtfully, like they’re trying to parse out Niall’s lack of enthusiasm. “Not that, um. I’m sure you are capable of looking after it yourself, only I think it’s kind of tricky to clean up your own hands without touching them or else it hurts worse, y’know?”

Liam smiles and Niall finds himself smiling back. It does make sense, really, and he doesn’t feel like Liam pities him, they just naturally seem to be very concerned about other people's well-being.

“Yeah, alright.”

“C’mon, it’s this way.”

Liam leads Niall to the back, and along the way Niall discovers Liam’s favourite colour is purple, he thinks Niall’s t-shirt is amazing, and that he’s also a close friend of Harry’s.

“I think Harry’s mentioned you before actually,” Liam remarks, hip-checking open the door to the staff room. “Aren’t you the one with the, uh-” Liam spreads his hands along his face and wiggles his fingers. Niall tilts his head, perplexed.

“The fish?” Liam shakes his head. “The catfish?”

“No, no, the little um, the porky-pig, thingy.” Liam clasps his hands together, like he’s holding a ball.

“Oh! You mean Bea?”

“No, it wasn’t a bee, Harry said-”

“Sorry, no, _Beatrice_ , as in my pet hedgehog.”

“Yes! Hedgehog! That was it!” Liam beams and pumps the air, looking as though he just won the lottery. He holds out his hand for a high five and Niall reaches out for it without thinking. He immediately hisses and shakes out his stinging palms. Liam apologizes profusely, even though it’s really not his fault at all.

“Here.” Liam pulls the first aid kit out of the cupboard and gestures for Niall to take a seat. He pats over the red patches of skin with a soapy cloth, dampened with warm water. His fingers move confidently, but his touch is surprisingly gentle. Niall wonders if he’s done this many times before.

“You got any little siblings?”

“Nah, two older ones, actually,” Liam says. “Mind, I’ve a few friends who get into scrapes quite a lot, so they might as well be a bunch of lil sibs.” He rummages through the kit for antiseptic. “This might sting a little,” he warns.

Liam sprays on the antiseptic without warning, and Niall resists the urge to fling himself into the ceiling. It stings a _lot_.

He distracts himself by telling Liam about the would-be pickpocket who tried to pinch Niall’s wallet last week and ended up getting a handful of quills instead when he reached into Niall’s pocket and made contact with Bea’s backside.

Niall figures the scream was more out of surprise than anything since hedgehog quills aren’t actually barbed like porcupines. It certainly surprised Niall, who dropped his groceries and smashed half of the eggs. The pickpocket bolted and was long out of Niall’s sight before he could figure out what had happened. Beatrice got an extra mealworm that night as a reward.

By the time Niall’s finished, there are deep lines of worry whittled into Liam’s forehead.

“That’s terrible, Niall. I, we-” Something seems to catch in Liam’s throat and he coughs over it. “ _Somebody_ should’ve helped you.”

The look on his face is almost guilty, and Niall frowns. That isn’t right. He didn’t tell Liam so he could feel sorry for him. And besides, it’s hardly Liam’s responsibility to keep ne’er-do-wells from ne’er-do-welling.

“Nah, that’s alright.” Sure, it had unnerved Niall quite a bit at the time, and he hasn’t taken that shortcut home through the alley since. But he still has his wallet and all his important things. Given more time, he’ll probably be laughing when he thinks back on it.  “And anyways,” Niall continues when Liam still looks like a puppy who let down the whole world, “Somebody’s helping me now, aren’t they?”

Liam smiles at that, just a bit, and his face seems to soften, though not as much as Niall would’ve hoped. He’s just finished bandaging up Niall’s hands, and now Liam’s carefully picking through the boxes of assorted cartoon band aids for the scratch on his knee.

“How are you getting home?” Liam asks, finally selecting a Spongebob one. It glows in the dark, which is probably the decisive factor that earns it the Liam Seal of Approval.

Niall shrugs. “Bus, probably.” Either that or flying.

“Ah, well.” Liam packs everything back into the first aid kit and helps Niall to his feet, wrapping his arms around Niall’s elbows so the scratches don’t smart. “I actually came here to take Harry home and if you’d like I could give you a ride as well?”

Ooh. That would be nice. “As long as it’s no trouble? I’m over on 6th Street”

“Nope.” Liam shakes his head fervently. “No trouble at all.”

Before they go, Harry beckons Niall to follow him into a storage room. Ah, right. Niall had all but forgotten why he came here in the first place.

Harry struggles to reach something wedged into the back of one of the topmost shelves. Even with the platform shoes he’s sporting today adding to his height, it’s just a bit too far away.

It suddenly occurs to Niall that he could get it down for him easily, by means of floating. But by the time he works up the nerve to offer, Harry’s already grabbing a stool.

Back home, Niall grew up surrounded by people who always knew he was Powered. It wasn’t something he ever had the opportunity to introduce to anybody else, and now that Niall is faced with the chance to do that for the first time, he realizes he has no idea how to go about it.

Generally, people tend to think Powers are cool, although Niall can think of a few people who seemed a little wary around him at times. Niall knows he’s hardly an intimidating person, so it wasn’t exactly hard to figure out why that would be.

There were also some people who seemed to like that part of Niall a little _too_ much, who acted as though that was the only thing that really mattered about Niall. It always made him feel itchy with discomfort to be around them.

Even though Niall hasn’t known Harry for all that long, they’ve already built up an easy camaraderie. Niall’s already heard himself introduced as one of Harry’s friends when he met Liam, and he thinks the same of Harry.

Niall doesn’t think Harry would treat him any differently, if he knew. He really doesn’t. And he hasn’t known Liam for all that long either, but there’s something about him that makes Niall want to trust him implicitly, something he felt from the moment he laid eyes on him.

But the moment’s passed, and Niall can’t just blurt it out now. He doesn’t have a chance to think about it anymore because Harry’s coming towards him carrying a glass box, or rather a tank.

“For you!” Harry says, beaming as he hands it over.

“Um, thank you.” Niall accepts the tank, feeling perplexed. “Er, what exactly am I supposed to do with this, then?”

“Oh, right. Well, the thing is, I accidentally dropped it on the floor a few days ago, and it broke - it was empty at the time, don’t worry - so my boss was gonna chuck it. But then I thought it was kind of a waste, and I patched it up as you can see, but apparently it’s not ‘nice’ enough to use here on display, even though I think it looks way cooler now.”

Harry pauses for half a second to take a breath, to Niall’s relief.

“And then I thought you could use it for your crickets! They’re really easy to keep, you just put in a couple rows of egg carton for them to hide in and a damp paper towel for them to drink from, and then you can go ahead and throw in a bit of fruit and veggies. Or cereal, they seem to be quite partial to corn flakes, especially if they’re on the soggy side, and-”

Liam shuffles in between them suddenly and nudges Harry in the ribs. “I think Niall gets it, love.”

Niall nods. “I do, yeah. Thanks Harry, that’s very thoughtful of you.” He’s actually surprised by how touched he feels about it, given how he’d rather deal with the bugs as little as possible.

“Just don’t name them,” Harry warns. “You’ll get attached.”

Niall snorts, because he can’t imagine himself having trouble with that.

It does, however, sound very much like something Harry would do.

Niall sets the tank down on top of the dresser when he gets home. It certainly doesn’t look too terribly fancy, with all the silvery patches of duct tape striping the edges. The crickets seem quite happy in it though, as far as he can tell.

And when Niall drifts off to the sound of their chirping that night, it’s the most soothing lullaby he’s had in ages.

 *

 Niall brings his laptop to the coffee shop one morning and orders a pot of tea and a large blueberry muffin for breakfast. He settles into a chair which _just so happens_ to be a few feet away from where Cute Stranger usually sits in the corner.

It’s only a coincidence though, _really_ , because Niall has things to do, things completely unrelated to the whereabouts of Cute Strangers.

Like most parents, Niall’s folks aren’t exactly the…best _,_ when it comes to technology. The internet in the apartment’s still dodgy, so it’s been a bit of a challenge keeping up with them through text and the occasional phone call.

It’s Maura’s birthday today though, and she said there’s nothing more she wants than to see Niall’s face for a little. So Niall, being the wonderful son that he is, is going to brave the perils of skyping for her.

Niall sends a video chat request and prays that the few sessions of technology tutoring Niall and Greg have done with their folks over the years paid off. After three accidental hang-ups and a couple other hiccups, they finally make contact.

Maura looks close to tears when she finally gets a glimpse of Niall, her first in months, but Niall knows that’s just because she’s happy to see him. Cry about everything, mums do.

Niall tells her about the job at the grocery store, how three of his coworkers started seeing each other and the manager’s relief when she found out. She’d noticed a couple of them making out and holding hands on their breaks together. She didn’t connect the dots the right way at first, thought somebody was cheating on the other one.

Maura tells Niall about the bake sale for the new church roof, and how she wishes they could send Niall one of the lemon squares Bobby cooked up, which had always been a family favourite.

Maura made strawberry-rhubarb turnovers from a new recipe the neighbour across the street had shared with her. They turned out a little drier than she would’ve liked, but not enough that she could claim old Mrs. Moore was trying to sabotage her bake sale reputation with shoddy recipes.

Something makes a plunking sound a few feet away from Niall, and he glances up, then quickly glances back to the screen. He’s been so engrossed in their conversation that he didn’t even notice when Cute Stranger walked in and probably wouldn’t have if he hadn’t dropped his bag on the floor when he sat down. Not that Niall was _planning_ to notice him or anything.

“What are you going all red for?” Maura asks, squinting at the webcam.

“I’m not-it’s nothing!” Niall protests, willing his mum to keep it down. She talks louder than she needs to over skype in the first place, and when she’s excited she gets even louder.

“Is someone there? Oh!” To Niall’s horror, she pieces it together. “It’s that cutie you’ve been talking about, isn’t it? Niall dear, you must introduce us!”

“Mother no, shhh!” Niall hisses through gritted teeth and tries to cover the speakers of the computer without Maura noticing. “Stop it, you’re embarrassing me.” She doesn’t seem to hear Niall, just babbles that her bathrobe isn’t quite decent enough to meet somebody Niall fancies, so she teeters off to put on her new Sunday dress.

Niall ruffles his hair in an attempt to hide the burning tips of his ears and sneaks a peek over at the other table, fearing the worst. Cute Stranger doesn’t seem to have noticed Niall at all. For once, it’s a huge relief.

He actually seems a little on edge today, hunched forward on the edge of his seat, fingers tapping erratically against the tabletop. He turns around to stare out the window. Must be waiting for someone then, Niall supposes. He sinks further down into the seat.

Suddenly, an alarm goes off on Cute Stranger’s wristwatch and he bolts up from his table, rushing out the door so quickly, it takes Niall a minute to realize he left his bag behind.

Niall taps out a quick message to Maura, promising that he’ll return soon, and closes the laptop. Cute Stranger’s bag is surprisingly heavy, Niall realizes, grunting as he heaves it over his shoulder.

“I’ll be right back,” Niall calls out to Jessi. Jessi waves him out and says something that sounds an awful lot like ‘go get ‘em tiger.’

Out on the sidewalk, Niall catches a glimpse of leather sleeve slipping into an alley up ahead and breaks into a run. His feet pound against the pavement and his heart pounds in his chest as he turns into the alley.

Suddenly there’s a _whoosh_ of air and the bag is yanked from Niall’s grip. He spins on the spot and nearly falls but catches himself against the wall just in time.

 _What the hell?_ Niall is completely alone in the alley and the bag is nowhere in sight. Something crashes up ahead, just out of Niall’s vision, around the corner where the alley veers into another one.

Niall lifts up into the air until his sneakers are dangling a couple inches above the ground. Then he moves forward, knowing if anyone happens to spot him it’ll look like he’s just jogging along like anyone else. But if there is a bag thief up ahead, they won’t hear Niall approaching.

Sure enough, Niall rounds the corner and spots someone crouched behind a dumpster, the bag right next to them.

“Oi!” Niall snatches up the bag and stumbles back with his feet firmly on the ground again. The person jumps and turns to face him, but Niall’s holding Cute Stranger’s bag very tightly against his chest so it won’t be stolen again. It’s too dark in the alley to make out the details of the person’s face, but they seem to be gaping at Niall.

“Excuse me!” The person snaps, recovering quickly. “That doesn’t belong to you.”

“I know - I’m returning it.” Distantly, Niall registers the sounds of sirens in the space between their voices.

“Like hell you were!” Stranger snorts. “Looked to me like you were stealing it. Now, give it here.” They seem to be getting more agitated, voice getting close to hissing.

“No, I- _You_ were stealing it!” The sirens are getting closer, accompanied by yelling voices now.

“Oh for pity’s sake-” Whatever they were about to say is lost when the sound of gunfire breaks out and suddenly Niall is being pushed down against the dumpster. At first, Niall thinks the stranger is attacking him, but they aren’t.

Instead, they crouch down next to Niall and peer around the side of the dumpster, towards the end of the alley that connects to the street where all the ruckus is coming from.

“Look pal,” The stranger hisses, turning and gripping Niall by the shoulder. “You need to get out of here, like, 30 seconds ago.”

Something lights up around their wrist, some kind of watch, maybe? “And that’s my cue to leave you.” The stranger stands up, pulling Niall to his feet and pushing him in the direction he came from.

“I don’t care where you go, but please do us a favour and stay away from banks today, alright? Cheers!” Niall stumbles and realizes the bag is gone again, but when he turns back, the stranger and Cute Stranger’s bag have vanished.

He stands there in the darkened alley for a few moments longer, feeling confused.

Whatever was going on, it seemed almost like the stranger was trying to protect Niall. Their last words didn’t feel like a threat, but more like a warning. Niall can’t make out the rest of it, so he shrugs and heads back to the coffee shop, figuring it can’t hurt to take their advice since he wasn’t planning on going to a bank today anyways.

Of course, Niall immediately starts panicking when he walks in the door and his laptop is nowhere in sight. Then Jessi’s calling him over to the counter, where he pulls out Niall’s bag with the laptop tucked safely inside.

“Any luck?” Jessi asks, raising his eyebrows meaningfully as he hands it over.

Niall sighs. He has no idea whether or not Cute Stranger will even get their bag back, and if the latter’s the case, well. Niall can’t imagine he’d be exactly grateful to him, even if Niall wasn’t the one who stole it, per se. "I think not.”

“Hey, there’s always a next time.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Niall shakes his head, trying to clear it of whatever it was that just happened.

Niall’s mustered up a straight face by the time he sets up the laptop to talk with Maura again. She seems convinced that Niall snuck off for a romantic rendezvous with Cute Stranger. It’s so far from the truth, Niall can’t help laughing at her.

They can’t talk for too long because Niall’s covering a shift later, but they figure out another time to skype again before he signs off. Bobby’s off at work today, but Niall would like the chance to speak with him, too.

Beatrice scampers across the kitchen to greet Niall when he walks through the door later that evening. Watching a hedgehog run makes Niall think of a big hairbrush scampering about on teeny toothpick stilts. It feels so nice to get such an enthusiastic little welcome committee, Niall can’t help but smile a little. He scoops her up and tucks her into the crook of his arms.

“Been a long day for me, kiddo,” Niall sighs. “You get up to anything interesting?” He drags his fingers through Beatrice’s quills and tilts his head down to catch all the snuffling little noises she’s making. “That much, huh?” Niall whistles.

Niall never really pictured himself as the sort of person to speak with their pets as though they could understand them. Of course, then he got a pet and it wasn’t long before Niall had to bid that bit of dignity a fond farewell.

After supper, they cuddle in front of the TV. Beatrice noses her way underneath Niall’s shirt until she can doze off against the warm skin of his belly.

Niall lifts up his shirt collar to get a peek at her. When Beatrice falls asleep all relaxed like this, her whole body flattens out as if she were boneless. Niall can’t help giggling every time he sees it, even though it does warm his heart to know that she probably sleeps uncurled like that because she trusts Niall so much. When she’s sleeping on her own, she’s almost always balled up. Niall never would’ve pegged hedgehogs as particularly cuddly creatures before he got Bea.

Niall yawns, feeling close to drifting off sleep himself. He picks up the remote and clicks through the channels one last time to see if there’s anything worth trying to stay awake for. The third and final channel is a local news station and Niall pauses to catch the end of a news segment.

“…to thank Injustice Busters, our city’s own group of superheroes, for foiling a bank robbery earlier today. The robbers, now safely in police custody, were heavily armed, taking 20 hostages. However, the team managed to apprehend them and recover the situation without any major injuries amongst the bank goers or the bank employees. Though this has yet to be confirmed, these robbers are also suspected to be the ones responsible for a string of robberies across the country over the past five years...”

Niall sits up straight on the sofa and stares at the TV, all traces of drowsiness gone, but the newscaster doesn’t bring up the team of heroes again.

 _Holy hell_.

Of course, Niall knew the chances of running into another Powered person would be much higher in a bigger city, but never in his wildest dreams had he imagined to find a whole _team_ of them here.

In fact, Niall would probably feel a little cross at himself for not thinking to look up something like that before, but right now he feels too overwhelmed with excitement.

“Bea, can you believe this?!” Niall extricates her from his shirt and holds her a few inches from his face. Beatrice doesn’t exactly share his enthusiasm, just hisses at having her sleep disturbed.

Niall sets her down on the cushion next to him and springs up off the couch and into the air. He does a somersault, rolling up above the couch and laughing for no particular reason. He does another somersault and smacks into the ceiling.

“Shit!” Niall slaps a hand over his mouth and waits. A long minute passes, but there’s no sound, nobody hollering to keep it down, nothing.

 _Phew_. Niall exhales slowly. Bea tilts her nose up trying to look at Niall and nearly topples over backwards. It appears as though she’s trying very hard to judge him.

The pain in the back of Niall’s skull slowly recedes, and with it goes the excitement.

Niall sighs and picks at a speck of flaking paint on the ceiling tile next to his head. It was bugging him earlier, but he didn’t feel like getting up to deal with it.

The more Niall thinks about it, the more he’s convinced that the person he ran into in the alley today was probably a member of the team. He’s not sure what street the alley emptied onto, but Niall’s willing to bet the bank from the newscast was very close.

But the thing is, even if Niall had somehow known who he was talking to, it wouldn’t have really meant anything, would it?

As incredibly cool as it is to discover that there’s a whole group of people like Niall, people who happen to be in the very same city as Niall, he realizes that it probably won’t change anything. He doubts he’ll have the chance to run into them again. Even if he did, what then?

Just because they have something in common, even something as significant as having powers, that doesn’t mean Niall’s entitled to actually know them - not who they are, what they’re like, or anything like that.

It doesn’t mean Niall could be friends with them.

Niall wraps his arms around his middle and hugs himself tightly as he slowly sinks back down to the floor. He definitely feels like sleeping now.

 *

 Niall takes Beatrice out for a walk down to the park a few days later. He slows down passing _Groundstown_ and tries not to let his heart sink when Cute Stranger is nowhere in sight.

Niall hasn’t seen him for over a week. He knows there was never really a specific time that the two of them had frequented the shop before, so at first he thought they were just missing each other.

But he’d casually asked Jessi about it the other night, and it turns out he hasn’t seen Cute Stranger either (except he certainly doesn’t call him that, because Niall is never, ever going to tell Jessi about his secret nickname for him).

“Could just be feeling under the weather? There’s a nasty bug going around right now,” Jessi added when Niall’s shoulders must’ve slumped visibly at the news. He had been hoping, at the very least, to strike up a quick conversation and ask if Cute Stranger got their bag back.

“I guess so,” Niall muttered. Or maybe he got tired of Niall hanging around watching him out of the corner of his eye like a weirdo and decided to find a new coffee shop where Niall wouldn’t be bothering him. That’s definitely a possibility, too.

It’s a good excuse as any for Niall to treat himself to his favourite hotdog stand for brunch. The onions layered over the top of the _Smokie Supreme_ are still sizzling when he pays for it. Niall’s pretty sure he’s drooling by the time it’s cool enough to take a bite.

He finds a nice spot in the shade of a big maple to take Beatrice out and lets her sniff around the grass a bit while he eats. She loves exploring, but even so, she never likes to stray too far from Niall. She seems to catch herself every few feet and suddenly darts back into Niall’s shadow.

“Fancy seeing you here, stranger.”

Niall glances up and grins through a mouthful of hotdog. “Hey, Haz.”

Harry plunks down cross-legged in the grass next to him. “Wanna hear a joke?”

Niall holds back a sigh. “Not particularly.” Not that he has a choice, of course.

Harry sticks out his tongue. “Well, too bad. What do you call a pansexual man named Nick who works at a record shop?”

Niall actually thinks about it for a moment. “I dunno, Nick?”

Harry shakes his head. “Not quite. I mean, yeah, but something better than that. Do you give up?”

“Yep.” Niall takes another bite. Harry’s got a grin creeping over his face not unlike the grinch, and Niall wonders how long he can last before bursting out with the punchline.

About 5 seconds. “Pan Nick at the Disc Co,” Harry says, enunciating each word as slowly as possible to make sure Niall gets it.

“Oh my god.” Niall snorts and covers his face. “Yeah, alright, that one’s pretty good.”

“Isn’t it?” Harry sighs happily and leans back into the tree. “One of my friends is a Nick, but he doesn’t work in a record shop, and _apparently_ a punchline isn’t enough to make him change careers.”

Niall shakes his head. “Rude.” He spots a red line running over Harry’s chin. It looks painful. “Hey, you alright?”

“Hm?” Niall taps the spot on his own face. “Oh yeah, s’just a scratch. Had to uh, bathe one of the cats at work, like, a bit ago, and you know how they hate water.” He wrinkles his nose distastefully. “It’s annoying though, cos I think that knowing what I know about cats means I ought to have some sort of affinity with them, but I don’t!”

Niall doesn’t have a chance to ask Harry what he means by that, because he suddenly spots Beatrice peering out from between Niall’s sneakers, and the resulting squawk of delight is more than enough to completely derail his thoughts.

Harry’s still just as enthralled about Beatrice as the first time he saw her, and he’s gotten a bit more adept at not getting poked since then. He coaxes Beatrice to climb into his hands, and Niall’s pretty sure he’s cooing internally as he strokes his fingers over her quills.

He catches himself wondering if Cute Stranger would be more interested in him if he knew Niall had a hedgehog. Which is, of course, _silly_ , Niall tells himself, because you can’t use pets to flirt with someone, much less someone you’ve never even spoken to before.

“Hey.” Harry nudges Niall gently in the ribs. He’s got a soft, speculative look on his face, and Niall wonders how much of his inner workings are showing up on his own visage. “Penny for your thoughts?” Harry asks.

Niall shrugs. “They discontinued those, remember?”

“Ah yes, so they did.” Harry taps his chin thoughtfully. “Luckily for you though, I am also willing to listen to people for free! Now come on, what’s got you making all those cranky faces?”

Niall rolls his eyes. He opens his mouth, intending to tell Harry it’s nothing, that’s just what his face looks like, but instead he starts talking about the crush.

Once he starts, it’s like opening a floodgate, and Niall finds himself gushing about every non-encounter they’ve had (although he skims over the whole bag incident); about the eye contact they shared that first day and how much Niall wants to get to know him, cos he’s probably the best person in the world, and Niall doesn’t know what to do.

Harry doesn’t say anything, just nods occasionally and purses his lips thoughtfully. When Niall’s confession finally trickles to an end, Harry reaches out to poke the air above Niall’s head, loudly smacking his bubblegum as he does.

“Not to burst your bubble, but I believe what you’ve got is infatuation at first sight, not love, bub.”

Niall splutters, partly because of the terrible visual pun and partly because he’s very well aware that it’s silly and ridiculous, and he knows perfectly well that nothing will probably ever come of it. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows it.

“Okay, just.” Harry holds up his hands, and Beatrice’s judgemental little eyes meet Niall’s too. Damn, everyone’s teaming up against him. “Sorry,” Harry continues, “I think that probably sounds a little mean, but like. You are asking for my advice, yeah?”

Niall half shrugs and turns it into a nod. He is, really.

“I just think like, you seem to have all your hopes set on this person. But you’ve never actually spoken to one another, so like, for all you know, he could be a huge jackass.”

“Well, yeah, but…” Niall doesn’t think that’s possible, and he would protest this slight against Cute Stranger’s character, except he doesn’t actually have any substantial reasons as to why this is exactly, just a _feeling_. “He just seems really nice though. And, I dunno, he looks so cute too...” It sounds pathetic even to Niall’s ears, but Harry doesn’t so much as roll his eyes.

“Even cute people can be jackasses, Niall. I just, um. I don’t want to see you get your little heart set on this and have it all trashed to pieces or something, y’know? And I mean, I could be wrong! I really hope I am, and I would even be glad to hear you say ‘I told you so,’ but if not, well...” He plucks a bit of grass and twiddles it morosely between his fingers.

Niall sighs. “No, no, you’re right. I think I have actually been a bit silly about all of this. It’s just like, I get the thought in my head that I like him and it won’t go away. And it just seems like it gets worse and worse the more I think about it, and I don’t even mean to, really, but I do. Then it’s like, almost impossible to actually talk to him because it’s built up into this great big stupid mess in your head, y’know?”

Harry hums thoughtfully, circling the blades of grass around his thumb until it looks a bit like a ring. “I mean, theoretically, yeah? I’ve heard about how pesky crushes are and all that, but I am like, really aro, so I can’t say I’ve got any personal experience there.” He carefully nudges the grass ring off his thumb and holds it up between two fingers triumphantly when the circle remains intact.

Carefully, he tucks it into the quills over Beatrice’s face, like a little crown. “Probably not the best person to advise you on such things, really. Like I _get_ it, kind of? Just not so much the appeal. I don’t think I’ve ever had a crush myself, only squishes for me.”

Honestly, Niall considers himself pretty damn interested in romance, but he doesn’t think he’d ever actually _wish_ he had a crush. They’re just so stressful.

“Squishes,” Niall repeats. “Oh, that’s like friend crushes, isn’t it? Those must be chill.”

“Yep, they’re pretty great. Honestly, I think they just _sound_ so much nicer, don’t you think? Like the difference between snuggling a cute little puppy versus getting hugged by a grizzly bear.”

Niall snorts at the mental image. “That’s not too far off from what crushes feel like.”

“You poor dear.” Harry reaches out to pat Niall’s arm with the hand not holding Queen Bea. “I wouldn’t wish a crush on anyone, but since you’ve got one, I hope it can work out the way you want it to? Just, don’t bet everything on it.”

“Thanks Haz. I think I needed to hear that.” Sure, Harry might’ve crushed his dreams a little bit, but a part of Niall thinks maybe it’s for the best. His folks haven’t been exactly helpful in a realistic way. They’ve been mostly dropping all sorts of relationship advice when Niall talks to them. Even Greg, in one of their skype calls together, recounted to Niall how he first asked out his wife, Denise. It would be helpful if Niall was actually _in_ a relationship, but he very much isn’t.

Something beeps in Harry’s pocket, and he checks his watch. “Oh shoot, looks like I’ve got to go.” He brings Beatrice up to his face to stare at her tenderly a few moments more before depositing her gently in Niall’s lap. “See you around, eh?”

“Yeah, take care, Harry!”

“Always do,” Harry calls over his shoulder and promptly stumbles over a tree root. Niall covers his face and prays that he makes it back home in one piece. The poor guardian angel responsible for watching over Harry must be a nervous wreck at all times.

Niall very deliberately avoids looking through the window of _Groundstown_ on the way back home. He thinks he spots a bit of leather jacket, but Cute Stranger is far from the only person who wears those, and Niall doesn’t turn around to make certain of it.

“I’m a mess!” Niall bemoans to Beatrice when they’re cuddling on his bed that night.

Beatrice is well aware of this already, has listened to Niall go on about Cute Stranger after every single non-encounter they’ve had. She still seems to like him anyways.

Niall sighs and scratches under her chin.

Harry’s right, is the thing. He never actually pointed it out, but Niall realizes liking someone based pretty much entirely on their looks is perhaps a little superficial.

 *

 Dinosaurs are among the most difficult groups of creatures to obtain in the exotic animal trade. It’s usually just wildlife organizations that can get permits to keep rescued ones, depending on the breed. For civilians, it’s next to impossible, but apparently not completely so if you have a little money.

One of the Banks kids, one of the richest families in town, managed to get his hands on a Pteranodon egg. He hadn’t done so legally, so he wasn’t required to meet any of the standard qualifications that were necessary to properly look after the dinosaur.

The subsequent escape of the Pteranodon from his house, then, was rather inevitable. Niall’s involvement in catching it, a little less so.

 *

Niall heard the news snippet just as he was heading out the door, intent on spending the dull late afternoon pestering Harry at work, perhaps after a quick stop at _Groundstown_. After deciding his crush on Cute Stranger was silly and not worth pursuing, he had debated switching to another coffee shop.

But it was the closest one to his apartment, and he still likes to chat with Jessi. He just doesn’t look for Cute Stranger anymore. He did notice that he has got his bag again somehow, which would be a good topic to start a conversation with if Niall hadn’t decided he would only be bothering him.

Bea hadn’t seemed in the mood to join him, so Niall turned on the radio to keep her company.

“-Injustice Busters have cornered the escaped Pteranodon inside the Central Gymnasium after the exciting chase through Main Street and are currently working on a plan to capture it safely. It does of course have the advantage of flight over them, but rest assured they are doing their best to catch the beast unharmed.”

Niall’s fingers freeze on the dial. Central Gymnasium. That wasn’t very far from here, maybe just under 15 if Niall flew… because Niall can fly, and they can’t.

He drones out the rest of the news bulletin as a plan starts to form in his brain. Niall’s not going to, like, butt in and take over the whole mission or anything, but maybe…he could stop by and offer to help? The worst that could happen is the Busters would say no, so.

“Although these creatures tend to avoid people and are unlikely to attack, we would like to advise everyone else to stay inside and not get involved for everybody’s safety. More news on this story as it develops.”

He looks down at his outfit. The hoodie’s warm and good for flying outside, but the boots could slip off pretty easily. Some kind of mask might be a good idea, too…

Niall kicks off his boots and flies over the kitchen counter. He doesn't touch the floor until he reaches the bedroom. He worms out of his favourite leggings and into a very hole-y pair of jeans, with a large soy sauce stain in roughly the shape of Australia over one thigh. If he is planning on wrangling with a dinosaur, Niall would probably do well to wear something a little scruffier.

Niall doesn’t have any masks, so he settles on tying a bandana over the bottom half of his face and zipping the hoodie up as far as it will go over top. He squints at his reflection around the crack in the bathroom mirror. It’s not exactly spandex, but it is practical and no one’s going to recognize Niall.

 _Not bad_ , he thinks, _not bad at all_ . He turns to check out his bum in the mirror, which _really_ would look good in spandex, come to think of it. But Niall hasn’t got any, much less the ability to sew, and oh right, he needs to go.

Niall pulls on some sneakers by the door, double knotting the laces to make sure they stay on. He pats himself down and pulls out his wallet. In the interest of anonymity, it’s probably best to leave that here, he thinks, just in case. Niall keeps his apartment key though, zipping it safely inside one of his inner pockets. He also keeps a pocket knife, which he figures it can’t hurt to have.

He darts into an alley as soon as he reaches the sidewalk, which is strangely vacant for this time of day, and takes off from there.

He doesn’t spare more than a moment to enjoy the sensation of rising out of the shivery shadows of the alley and up into the warm light of the sun, of the air ruffling through his clothes. It feels better with his hair loose too, if Niall was flying just for the fun of it.

But Niall’s on a mission and flies off in the direction of Central Gymnasium as fast as he can.

 *

 The situation has not improved by the time Niall arrives. If anything, it’s gotten worse.

One of the heroes got a hold of some rope and was apparently trying to lasso the dinosaur down. He succeeded on getting the rope around the Pteranodon, but, unfortunately, he also managed to get himself tangled up in it as well.

Niall peers in a window to see the two of them screeching as they circle around the ceiling. The lights are dim, but Niall can sort of make out several figures on the floor amidst the gym equipment. Some of them are being directed towards the door, presumably by other members of IB.

One of them seems to be in charge, hollering, “We’ll get the civilians out first, then we’ll work on getting him down.”

Right, here’s Niall’s chance to help. While they’re getting the gym-goers to safety, Niall’s going to distract that dino. He pops open the window with his feet, then hovers in the air for a moment.

It occurs to Niall then that he doesn’t actually know anything about Pteranodons, or dinosaurs at all, for that matter. Just that they can both fly.

A particularly loud screech rings out and Niall realizes with a start that the Pteranodon has spotted him and it’s headed right towards him. He scrambles out of the way, but the dinosaur’s path never waivers and he realises a moment too late that it’s aiming for the window, not Niall.

 _Shit_.

“Sonic, no!” Somebody yells from below. Niall catches a glimpse of Sonic’s wide eyes as he clings to the belly of the Pteranodon gliding out the window.

“Oops, sorry!” Niall calls down to the others. “Don’t worry though, I’m on it!” He scrambles out the window before anybody can respond. He couldn’t make out any of their faces, but he can’t imagine any of them look too impressed right now.

Niall catches up to the dinosaur and it’s unwilling passenger easily, which Niall suspects is more because it’s tired out from a lot of flying already, plus the added weight of the Buster tangled around its feet than anything.

Niall finds himself flying several feet above them while he tries to decide on his next course of action. Getting the Buster down safely before the rope snaps and he falls would probably be good.

Niall rolls down through the air until he’s hovering upside down below the Pteranodon’s belly. Sonic is clinging on for dear life, eyes squeezed tightly shut. Niall checks over his shoulder to make sure he isn’t about to fly into anything, but they’re in the clear, at least for now.

“Ahem,” Niall coughs, tapping him on the shoulder. Sonic startles, but doesn’t let go, just tilts his head a little to stare incredulously at Niall.

“What in the- who the hell are you?!” His voice sounds very familiar, and Niall has the feeling that they may have met before, but he tucks that thought away for later. Now clearly isn’t the time to pursue it.

“Just uh, somebody trying to help out.” Niall winces, knowing he isn’t doing the greatest job of helping so far, since it is maybe, sorta, totally his fault that the dino escaped from the Gymnasium. “Here, let’s get you untangled first.”

Sonic’s eyes, one of the few features of his face visible through his mask, widen and he starts to protest about falling. Niall quickly reassures him that won’t happen. “I promise I’ll catch you, okay?” He starts unraveling the rope as best he can, before remembering his pocketknife.

“Here, gimme that,” Sonic demands when he’s got one arm free. “You better be ready to catch me in about two seconds, though.”

“I-alright.” Sonic’s hand barely moves but suddenly the ropes are all sliced through and he drops down onto Niall with an _oomph_. His arms wrap tightly around him, and Niall’s pretty sure he can feel fingernails digging into him even through the hoodie.

The Pteranodon screeches at the loss of weight. The wings beat the air around them with more fervor, like it’s trying harder to escape them now, which definitely cannot happen.

Niall needs to do something quickly though, because while Sonic isn’t too heavy, this is the first time Niall’s carried someone else this high in the air before, and he doesn’t have the super strength to trust himself to keep them aloft here forever.

Somehow they’ve got to get close enough to the ground to safely drop off Sonic, without letting the Pteranodon get away. Niall has a plan, a good one this time (he hopes).

“I’ve got an idea,” he says near Sonic’s ear.

“What?”

“Just roll with it,” Niall says, louder, before he rolls them up through the air until they’re hovering just above the Pteranodon’s back. “Get ready to grab on,” Niall hollers.

“Kay.” Sonic nods against him, already loosening his grip in preparation to land. He doesn’t even question Niall this time, and he can’t help feel a little impressed.

Sonic must be terrified by this whole situation. Niall knows he certainly would be, if he couldn’t fly. But he’s handling all of this remarkably well, considering everything he’s just been thrown into. Of course, Sonic is a hero, someone who no doubt gets thrown into strange and scary situations on the daily.

Still though, it must be easier to tackle when you’ve got trustworthy teammates to rely on, not complete strangers popping out of nowhere like Niall. This really wasn’t how Niall hoped he would get involved in the mission.

Sonic twists in the air as they drop down onto the Pteranodon’s back, so he lands facing forwards. The dinosaur screeches and sinks in the air as though it almost forgot how to fly in surprise. Niall peers around Sonic’s shoulders, needs to figure out how to steer this thing.

They’re flying above Riverside Park now, and Niall spots the beach ahead of them.

“Can you swim?” He asks.                      

“Yes, bu- Oh no, don’t you dare!”

Before Niall has a chance to convince Sonic otherwise, the dino decides for both of them and dives down towards the water. They start yelling as though they’re riding on the world’s worst roller coaster. Niall tightens one arm around Sonic, wrapping his legs tighter around the Pteranodon’s shoulders as they brace for impact. They pull up slightly before they hit the water, so it’s the temperature of the water that feels more shocking than anything else as they dive down.

The Pteranodon flounders for a moment as they breach the surface of the water, tilting its head back and gulping down a large fish. Niall and Sonic gasp for breath, but he can feel the dinosaur tensing to fly off again.

He shoves Sonic into the water just before they take off.

Niall peers back over the wings, spots him spluttering at the surface. He shakes a fist up at Niall and gives him the finger with his other hand, which probably means he’s alright. _He’ll be fine_ , Niall thinks, relieved. _He can swim to shore and contact the team to come get him_.

The Pteranodon spins in the air suddenly. Niall isn’t sure if it’s trying to dry off or dislodge him, or maybe both, but he only just manages to hold on. He grits his teeth. Sonic may be safe, but Niall has no idea how to get this dinosaur to land.

It’s panting now, probably wants this whole affair to be over and done with. _You and me, both_ , Niall thinks.

He wraps his hands around the Pteranodon’s crest just above his head and tugs it to the left. The dinosaur makes a cawing sound and banks in the same direction. Okay, maybe Niall can sort of steer them. That’s a start.

 _It’s a bit like riding a horse!_ Niall thinks. Except he’s never actually ridden a horse before, so that thought isn’t all too terribly comforting.

They’re passing over houses now and Niall wracks his brains for a way to get them down safely. He can’t aim for the streets, there’s too much risk of hitting a car or landing on someone. Besides, once they get down, the dinosaur’s got to stay put somehow.

Niall scans below, searching for something, _anything_. He spots a flat rooftop with several clotheslines stretching across it. That could work.

Niall tightens his legs around the Pteranodon’s shoulders and leans back, while simultaneously pulling back hard on the crest. The dinosaur squawks as they tilt downwards, tries to flap its wings to regain balance, but they’re off course and seconds later they crash into the clotheslines.

Niall tumbles over the Pteranodon’s head and lands hard on the gravel, finally rolling to a stop against some sort of hard, crate-like object.

“Who put that there?” Niall mumbles, cradling the back of his head. “Rude…” He tries to sit up, but the air feels heavy, like gravity has just gotten stronger and he falls back down. “Nope, bad idea.”

Niall yanks at the scarf still covering the bottom half of his face and pulls it down to catch some fresh air, fights to catch his breath. His stomach feels woozy and he doesn’t think he should try standing up again anytime soon.

The dinosaur’s squawking protests have died down to annoyed grunting now, and Niall glances over as best he can. It doesn’t appear injured, only tired, which is pretty understandable. Niall feels the same. It seems to have given up trying to break free and fly away again, so there’s that at least.

“It’ll be fine,” Niall says. “Just…give me a sec, and I’ll call someone to get you.” He closes his eyes. He doesn’t even have a phone right now. He’ll find one though, later.

Niall isn’t sure how much time passes when the Pteranodon suddenly lets out a loud shriek. Niall can’t be bothered to lift his head to see what it is, feels too heavy to move at the moment.

Dazedly, he wonders if perhaps somebody else might be on the rooftop with them. Then there’s a massive, shaggy head looming over him, and he doesn’t have to wonder anymore.

Niall squints carefully. Nope, still there, even though he’s _certain_ they didn’t mention anything about escaped tigers on the radio.

 _Fairly_ certain. Perhaps he’s hallucinating now, but neither possibility is very comforting.

Bright green eyes widen in something like surprise, inches away from Niall’s own. Niall realizes it’s probably not good to stare predators in the eye, so he averts his gaze, only to get an eyeful of long white fangs framing a wide, pink tongue. A soft chuffing sound rolls out of the animal’s throat and hot air wafts over Niall’s face.

It feels far too real to be a dream.

 _Ugh_ , Niall thinks hazily, _never would’ve thought tiger breath stinks like bananas_.

It’s the last thing on his mind before his brain gives up and everything swirls away into nothingness.

 *

When he was little, Niall always used to dream about sleeping in the clouds; he couldn’t imagine anything cozier than the downy, white shapes that cushioned the angry hot rays of the sun in the summer.

Of course, then Niall got older and had to face reality, that clouds were made of vaporized water droplets (not cotton candy, as he had often hoped) and they wouldn’t support Niall’s weight the way he thought they could.

His dad knew that Niall would want to test it himself anyways, whether or not his parents said he was allowed to fly sky high. On Niall’s eighth birthday, Bobby took him out to a field where there was nobody else to bother them, and told Niall to go for it.

It was strange at first, because Niall had always wanted to fly to cloud level, had wanted it so much he frequently dreamed of it, but when the opportunity came, he almost couldn’t do it.

The sky was so vast and endless, it just went on and on, up and up, forever. It felt like staring into the mouth of an abyss and hoping it wouldn’t swallow him up if he went into it.

Niall drifted up a few inches off the ground, until not even the tallest blades of grass were brushing against his toes. He was still clutching tightly to Bobby’s hand, and this was as far as he could reach.

“I’ll be right here,” Bobby promised. He squeezed Niall’s fingers, and Niall squeezed back. Then he let go.

It was still early in the morning, the sun only just waking up. The air was chillier than Niall expected it to be, and he was actually grateful his dad had insisted on bundling him up in one of his ugly hand-knit Christmas sweaters, probably the first time he’d felt that way in his whole life.

Niall was scared at first as he rose, scared that he wouldn’t be able to stop going up, equally scared that he’d forget how to float and fall back to earth. They were ridiculous things that he’d overheard people whispering about him. Niall didn’t want to believe them, but he didn’t have the experience necessary to shove in their faces.

“The sky’s the limit, Niall!” Niall tilted his chin down and almost did a full somersault to see Bobby. He was smiling, one hand held over his forehead to shade his eyes. It almost looked like a salute. “You can do it!”

Niall wasn’t quite able to appreciate the level of trust his dad had in his abilities at the time, but he didn’t doubt for a moment that he would’ve caught Niall if he lost the flight.

Then Niall reached a cloud, and he wasn’t afraid anymore.

The way the cloud threaded through his outstretched fingers reminded Niall of dipping his hand into a brook, if flowing water was a little less tangible. Niall laughed and swooped a loop-de-loop through the clouds. It felt incredible; like climbing up into a little universe that was created just for Niall somehow or stepping into a tailor-made suit that fit every inch of him, from his innermost core to the tips of his fingers.

Down below, the sound of Bobby’s cheers drifted up with the early morning mist.

Being allowed to touch the sky for the first time like that was by far one of the greatest birthday presents Niall ever received.

 *

 Niall wakes up again slowly.

At first, he thinks he’s still dreaming about sleeping in the clouds. It feels like he’s floating on something soft, but it’s more solid than the dream clouds and warm. Warmer than even the hottest summer air.

  
Gradually, the dream shifts and Niall becomes aware that he’s lying in a bed, wrapped in blankets. It’s not his own bed; neither the one in the apartment nor the one back home at his parents’.

Niall’s never been in this room before. The walls are streaked with different colours, like someone splashed paint all over them. There might be more definitive shapes in the patterns, but the room is dark, the blinds dense over the window, and Niall’s too far away to tell.

There’s also a cat curled up over Niall’s ankles. Niall blinks again, adjusting to the light peeking through the bottoms of the blinds now. The cat is a long-haired tortoiseshell, not that this makes Niall’s whereabouts any clearer.

“Hullo.” Niall coughs, voice sleepy-hoarse. “What are you doing here?”

Niall thought his voice was quiet enough, but the cat startles awake as though he had yelled.

The moment he spots Niall, the cat darts up the bed, clambering over his torso with a deep purr rumbling through his chest. He noses his cheek along Niall’s own and he giggles, reaching up to pet him.

“Well, aren’t you friendly?” Niall frowns then, the events leading up to his unconsciousness racing to the forefront of his memory again. “Wait. What’s going on?”

The cat pulls back with a mew. Then he turns and leaps off the foot of the bed.

A moment later, Harry is stretching up from the floor. His curls are a good deal messier than usual, and there’s a streak of dirt over his chin.

“Oh Niall, thank goodness you’re alright.” His lips quirk up into a smile and he hurries towards Niall’s side.

Harry’s got a great smile - all wide, naturally straight teeth (Niall knows they’re natural because Harry’d complemented Niall’s smile before and the topic of braces came up) that takes up most of his face and brings out his dimples. But this one seems too much, somehow, stretched too painfully as though he’s forcing his features into it.

His hands flutter nervously around Niall, who only just refrains from swatting them away before Harry finally settles, brushing the hair off Niall’s forehead and resting a warm, wide palm there.

“How are you feeling? Does anything hurt? What do you remember?”

“I don’t, um.” Niall frowns. For some reason, “Harry, are you a cat?” is the first thing out of his mouth. Harry’s grin softens into something a bit closer to his usual, so perhaps it’s not the worst thing Niall could’ve said.

“Cats, Niall. Not _a_ cat, I’m all cats.” He doesn’t take his eyes off Niall as he speaks, and Niall recognizes the same meadow green in his eyes he saw before passing out. “Any cat you can think of, I can become.”

“Oh.” That explains why Niall’s not tiger chow right now. “That, that’s cool.”

“It is, yes.” Harry takes a seat on the bed next to Niall and winks. “Flying’s pretty cool, too.”

Niall flushes. “Um, yeah… How did you find out about that?”

“Found you on the rooftop, remember?”

“Yeah, but how did you know that I was - Oh.” It hits Niall then. “You’re, you’re part of the team aren’t you?” Niall drops his voice to a whisper, because he’s not sure if they’re allowed to talk about this. “The Injustice Busters?”

Harry raises his eyebrows, but the rest of his face remains blank. He beckons Niall towards him, and he leans in close, until Harry’s breath is tickling the shell of his ear.

“Ye-up!” Harry pops the ‘p’ directly into Niall’s ear and he jerks away.

“Oi! You spit in my ear.”

“Sorry!” Harry wipes his mouth and has the decency to look a bit apologetic for a moment before he carries on with a grin. “I just don’t get to break the news to many people, so I’ve got to draw it out as much as I can, don’t I?” Niall has a million questions on the tip of his tongue, and Harry must realize this because he hastily holds up his hands. “Now, now. We can talk about all that in a minute, but first I want to know: what do you remember?”

Niall sighs and massages his temples, struggles to focus the thoughts churning around in his skull, and tries to pick out something that makes sense. It feels like trying to keep an eye on one particular sock in the washing machine.

He slowly recounts catching the radio snippet that afternoon, how he decided to help out, the flight with Sonic into the river, and crashing the Pteranodon into the clothesline.

“And then I guess I blacked out after I saw the tiger, er, you.”

“Yeah, I tend to have that effect on people,” Harry says drily. “You hit your head and got a bit of a concussion, so we brought you here to keep an eye on you.” Harry reaches over to the bedside table and hands Niall a glass of water and a bottle of Acetaminophen. “Here, this’ll help with the headache.”

“Thanks.” Niall gulps down the whole glass. He didn’t realize how thirsty he was until Harry offered it. “So, where’s the rest of the ‘we’ now?”

“Downstairs, I think. We didn’t want to overwhelm you with everybody all at once.” Harry puts the empty glass back on the side table. “You feeling up to more visitors, then?”

Niall nods slowly, casually, but his stomach is bubbling with nervousness at the prospect of meeting the team, Harry’s team. “Yeah, alright.”

Harry pulls back his sleeve and presses his fingers against something that looks like a watch, but must be something more when he speaks into it. “Heyyy everyone. The sleepyhead’s awake if you wanna come up and say hi.”

Not a second later, the door is thrown open with a bang. Niall winces. That certainly isn’t helping the headache.

“Louis,” Harry tuts softly. “Niall got a concussion, remember?”

“Sorry.” Louis makes his way over to Niall a little more softly. He stops at the foot of the bed and plants his hands over his hips. He’s frowning, looking a mix of worried and irritated.

“Just eager to meet the person who had the bright idea of chucking me in the river!” He peers down at Niall, fingers strumming a testy rhythm against his hips. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

“I suppose it was, yeah,” Niall chuckles weakly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Sorry? It honestly seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Well, it was reckless and idiotic, not to mention extremely unpleasant. To be fair though, I probably would’ve done the same thing myself, so.” Louis dips his head towards Niall, a gesture which he takes to mean ‘thank you’.

“Good to meet you on solid ground, at any rate.” Louis holds out a hand and Niall takes it. His grip is firm, but not painfully so, though Niall doesn’t doubt it easily could be.

“Likewise,” Niall agrees. “So, uh. You’re Sonic, right?”

“Professionally, yes.” Louis says, dipping back into half a bow. “But outside of the ‘stume it’s Louis.”

“We call them our stage names,” Harry cuts in. “All the world’s a stage, y’know.”

“And personally, I think we put on one hell of a performance.”

“True, that.” Niall agrees. “So what’s your stage name then, Harry?”

“Oh god.” Harry covers his face and stares at Niall beseechingly through the cracks in his fingers. “There’s just so _many_ good cat puns, Niall, it’s so hard to choose just one!” Harry looks more distraught than the time Niall had to choose between chocolate fudge and ice cream cake for his 6th birthday party.

“What are you calling yourself now, though?” Louis prompts.

“Purriosa!” Harry declares. Niall grins. It certainly suits him. “And a few months ago I was _Cat_ astrophe, and then before that I was _Kit_ -astrophe, cos you can spell it both ways and I couldn’t use just one and let the other go to waste, could I?”

“Goodness, no.” Louis clasps a hand over his heart in mock horror. Niall tilts his head. The more Louis talks, the more Niall is convinced that he knows him from somewhere, before today.

“Hey, Louis? We’ve met before, haven’t we?”

“Uh, yeah?” Louis huffs, blowing a tuft of hair off his face. “I made your acquaintance this very afternoon, shortly before you introduced _me_ to the river. Or have you hit your head harder than we thought and forgotten already?”

Harry gives Louis a scathing look, but Niall finds he doesn’t actually mind. He likes that Louis’ joking about the whole ordeal, doesn’t make it seem quite so daunting to think about. He probably has a knack for lightening situations like that.

“No, I didn’t mean that. I was thinking more um, in an alley, maybe? There might’ve been a bank involved, too.”

Louis hums, thinking for barely a moment before the realization shows on his face all at once. “Ah yes, the knapsack kid.” Louis snaps his fingers. “I do remember you.”

Niall’s about to ask whether perhaps Louis is at all acquainted with the owner of the bag, but they’re interrupted by someone knocking on the door frame.

“Not intruding on anything, are we?” Niall instantly recognizes Harry’s friend, Liam, from the pet shop. He looks completely knackered, but the smile that lights up his face when he sees Niall is no less warm for it.

“Took you slow pokes long enough to get here,” Louis tuts, draping himself over one of the bed posts.

“Yeah well, not everyone’s got super speed, Lou,” says a voice Niall doesn’t recognize.

Another person trails in just behind Liam, and Niall has never been prouder of himself in his whole entire life for not blurting out, ‘ _Cute Stranger!_ ’ right then and there.

Harry beckons for Cute Stranger to come closer. “I know you’ve already met Liam, and this is Zayn. Zayn, meet Niall.”

“Hey.” _Zayn_ steps forward and offers a little wave. “Um, what’re your pronouns?”

“Him/his,” Niall peeps. “Yours?”

“Oh um, same here.” Zayn smiles, a little distractedly. “It’s nice to meet you, properly anyways.”

“You too,” Niall says, a little too loudly. He is suddenly very much aware that he’s still dressed in his filthy rooftop clothes. He hasn’t seen a mirror lately, but Niall can’t imagine he’s a pretty sight right now. This is _so_ not how he would’ve imagined their first actual introduction going.

“What do you mean, ‘properly’?” Harry asks. “Do you know each other?”

“Not really, just, like...” Zayn shrugs and rubs the back of his neck. “I think we both frequent the same coffee shop sometimes. _Groundstown_ , yeah?”

Niall nods slowly, casually, because yes, he just so _happens_ to frequent that place, and _perhaps_ he’s also noticed Zayn there from time to time as well.

“What were you doing there, Zayn?” Louis butts in. “I thought you hated that place.”

Zayn scoffs and looks away. “I never said that.”

“Yeah, you said, and I quote, that the atmosphere is ‘deplorably hipster’.”

Zayn crosses his arms. “Well, I guess it just got better then. It’s a good look-out spot.”

“Since when?”

“I don’t know - a while ago! Does it really matter?” Zayn shoots Louis a glare that would’ve made most people tremble in their shoes. Louis meets it with a sharp grin.

Niall is so lost.

“Ignore this one, Niall,” Louis says, still smiling as he turns to look at Niall. “He’s just cranky about missing his afternoon nap.”

“I am not,” Zayn grumbles, crossing his arms.

Louis nudges Niall, mouthing ‘ _See_?’ as though they’re sharing an inside joke. Yeah, Niall definitely likes him.

Liam clears his throat. “Well, Niall, it certainly is a relief to see you’re alright after all that. You really scared us there.”

“Ah, right.” Niall’s twists the sheets between his fingers. “Sorry about that.”

“What you did was very reckless,” Liam continues with a serious frown. Off to the side, Niall catches Louis sending him a sympathetic grimace and oh no, Niall’s totally going to get chewed out something awful for interfering with their mission. “You jumped into a dangerous situation without any idea of what you were getting into, and anybody could’ve been seriously injured because of that.”

Niall wills himself to sink through the bed and into the floor. Any moment now, Liam’s going to throw him out, and Niall wishes he’d just get it over with.

“However.” Liam cracks a smile again. “You did manage to rescue Louis and safely apprehend the Pterodactyl-”

“-Pteranodon,” Harry whispers the same time as Zayn mutters, “Bucky.”

“The Pter- the _dinosaur_ ,” Liam says decidedly, “and for that we’d like to say thank you.”

“What?” Niall must’ve heard wrong. “I’m not in trouble?”

“Well, no.” Liam looks around at the rest of them and they all shake their heads. “I mean, it’s definitely prefered if you’d speak with the people already involved with the situation beforehand, but in this case, we understand that there wasn’t really time to chat. And like, it’s not up to me to tell you how to use your powers, although I do think that you could use some more training if you were thinking of doing anything remotely like that ever again. You probably need a better mask, too, if you decided to keep your identity quiet. But you certainly didn’t blow the mission or anything. There was no serious damage aside from a few clotheslines, which has already been taken care of.”

“And we’ve done a lot worse than that ourselves,” Zayn adds.

“So much worse,” Harry agrees, sharing a grimace with Louis, who rubs the back of his neck almost guiltily.

“Well, um. That’s good. I’m glad no one got hurt.”

Liam fixes Niall with a hard look. “Except you, which still isn’t okay.”

“Don’t forget my pride,” Louis mutters, kicking at the side of the bed a little.

Liam rolls his eyes, but Niall looks gratefully at Louis. He doesn’t think Louis was bringing it up to make Niall feel guilty (well, perhaps a little), mostly just trying to lighten things up.

“Anyways, you’re alright, we’re alright - everything turned out fine, so.” Zayn shrugs. “We’re good.”

“Well!” Harry claps his hands together. “Now that we’ve got all that sorted, how about some supper?”

Niall’s stomach grumbles eagerly, because that sounds like the best idea ever. He hasn’t eaten since - oh. Oh no.

“Hang on, what time is it?”

Liam checks his watch, which looks a lot like the ones everyone else has. “It’s nearly half past five now. Why?”

Niall groans. “I’d better head home and feed Beatrice.” She has her water bowl, and she certainly won’t starve to death, but Bea gets cranky and tends to piss on things when she goes too long without treats or company. Niall desperately wishes there was some way he could explain the concept of double shifts to her.

“Beatrice?” Louis asks.

“His hedgehog,” Harry supplies as Niall kicks out of the bed sheets.

“Yeah.” Niall checks his pockets for his wallet, before remembering he left it back at the flat, along with his bus pass. _Great_. “Er, how far are we from 6th Street?”

Zayn speaks up this time. “Other side of town.”

 _Super_ _great_. His knee twinges at the thought of walking that far, and his head is still throbbing with a dull ache that makes Niall feel sick at the mere idea of flying right now. Not really a good idea to be light in the air for that long when he’s feeling light in the head.

“Sorry but um, could I borrow some bus fare?” Niall twists his fingers together and ducks his head down to stare at his lap. “I promise I’ll pay you back, I just left my wallet at home today.”

Niall’s probably intruded into their lives enough for one day. Even though it turned out alright, he still feels a bit guilty about mucking his way into the mission without actually briefing with the team or coming up with a plan beforehand. And being where he is now, although he didn’t have much control over that bit.

“Nah,” Louis says. “You got a key?”

“Yes?” Niall does, but he doesn’t know why Louis would want it.

“Give it here then, I’ll go feed your hog. No offence, but you look like you’re gonna pass out if you move too much.”

“I, really? It’s a long way, I don’t want to trouble you.”

“Niall…” Louis, leaning against the bedpost at the foot of the bed one moment, is suddenly sitting cross-legged inches away from Niall. And now he’s holding a pillow. Niall didn’t even see him move. “It’s no trouble.”

“Oh. Right then.” Niall pulls out his key and tells Louis how to get in. “If you’re really sure? I don’t want to put anyone out or-”

“My god, just sleep here!” Louis huffs, shoving the pillow into Niall’s face and snatching the key. “Zayn can bunk with me, it’s fine!” Then he’s gone, and the door thumps against wall in his wake.

“Why would Zayn…?” Niall trails off and feels his face heating up as he realizes. Right, because this must be Zayn’s room.

Harry put Niall in Zayn’s bed.

Of course, there’s no way he could’ve possibly known who Cute Stranger really was, but still. Niall wishes he could melt into the floor right about now.

“Oh, I- I’m so sorry Zayn, I can go-”

Zayn cuts him off. “Nah, it’s chill. I don’t mind.”

“How about that supper, then?” Liam asks. “We had some tomato soup earlier we could heat up, if you’d like?”

Niall’s stomach grumbles. “That sounds great!”

“No, no, I’ll get it for you,” Harry says, pushing Niall back into bed.

“Harry, I’m fine,” Niall scoffs. “Let me up.”

“But Niall!” Harry protests. “You shouldn’t be doing anything too physical right now. You’ve still got your head injury to worry about and-”

“I feel fine Harry, honestly-” Niall tries to protest, but Harry barrels on as if he hadn’t spoken.

“-And you looked so poorly when I found you on the rooftop. I was so worried, especially when I realized who you were, and then you passed out and we had to carry you back down afterwards, and you still looked awful and-”

Well, that’s all mildly embarrassing, but Niall maintains he’s fine. His headache is already starting to lessen.

“Harry,” Niall says warningly, and the tone is enough to give Harry pause.

Thankfully, Liam cuts in before Niall has to physically fight his way out of bed. “C’mon Haz, you’ll mother the poor guy to death. You said yourself it was only a mild concussion.”

Harry rolls his eyes but steps back.

Niall stands up and immediately stumbles back against the bed again. He holds up a hand before Harry can even open his mouth. “It’s fine! Sometimes my knees feel like jelly if I’ve been flying for a long time and don’t do any stretches afterwards.”

And Niall went right to sleep when he reached the ground again, so really, he’d be surprised if he _didn’t_ stumble, especially with his dodgy knee.

Niall decides not to mention that to Harry. Of course, he means well, and Niall does appreciate the concern for his wellbeing, deep down. But it can feel a little overbearing at times, which Niall really isn’t in the mood for putting up with right now. After everything they’ve done for him already today, he needs to feel, if not entirely helpful, then at least capable of looking after himself.

He makes it downstairs on his own just fine, even though Harry offers to carry him twice. Niall suspects he might just be looking for an excuse to pick him up. Tall people are like that sometimes.

The soup is delicious, a creamy mixture that’s red and orange as autumn. Niall realizes it’s the first bit of proper food he’s had today, the quarter bag of cheezies for breakfast probably didn’t count for much. It’s a wonder he didn’t pass out sooner.

The others munch through half a packet of oreos as they discuss what to do with the Pteranodon, which Niall learns is currently sleeping in the basement. They’ve contacted a Jurassic Inspector to come check him out, but Zayn wants to get licensed to keep him.

“C’mon, he’d be awesome to have on the team! We could take him on missions with us and everything!” Zayn’s eyes are bright and sparkling with excitement as he talks. “And all he eats is fish, which isn’t _too_ expensive, plus we could even see about getting him a special permit to fish in the lakes, ‘eh? You and I both know that the region would _love_ having a resident dino.”

Liam looks torn between feeling appalled and delighted at the idea. None of them have actually said so, but Niall’s got the impression that Liam’s the closest they have to a leader. Right now, he seems to be struggling to be responsible in that role.

“I’m not sure… any pet is a lot of work, but this wouldn’t be like taking a dog out to walk; we’d have to fly him. And he’s not trained for riders, as we certainly saw with Louis today. Honestly, it would be too dangerous to even try.”

Harry frowns in an exaggerated pout, but Zayn looks so utterly heartbroken that Niall finds himself offering to train the Pteranodon before he has a chance to think about it.

“I could do it!” Everyone stares at Niall, and he gulps. “I mean, I’m not an expert on dinosaurs or anything, but I could read up on how to train them, no biggy. And it wouldn’t matter if I ever fell off, cos the sky’s kinda like my own safety net and all.”

Zayn and Harry turn to stare pleadingly at Liam, who sighs. His face is so open that it’s obvious to everyone, even Niall, that he’s about to relent. But he gnaws on his bottom lip for a long moment, as though still carefully deliberating it.

“Look,” Liam says, holding his hands up in front of him placatingly. “It’s ultimately going to be up to the Jurassic Inspector whether we can keep him or not, so I can’t promise anything for sure. But I suppose we can give it a shot.”

“Yayyy Liam! You’re the best!” Harry pumps the air so enthusiastically he almost knocks over his milk. “Thanks Niall, you’re also the best!”

“Yes, thank you so much!” Zayn stares at Niall with such sincere gratitude, he almost has to look away.

“Hey, I’m happy to hel-” Niall cuts himself off with a yawn.

Liam smiles and pushes up from the table. “And I think it’s about time we start heading off to bed.” He reaches out to take Niall’s dishes, but Niall waves him off.

“Oh no, I’ve got them. Least I can do is wash my own dishes after everything you guys have done for me.”

For a moment, he’s afraid Liam will frown and tell Niall it’s no trouble and take them anyway, but he relents with a shrug. “As you wish.”

“Buttercup,” Zayn chimes in with a grin.

“Oh Westley,” Niall sighs wistfully and immediately regrets it when his brain processes the implications of that. “Er, not to say that you’d be Westley, I just-”

“Why not?” Harry snaps an elastic around the bag of oreos. “I think Zayn would make an excellent Dread Pirate Roberts.”

“Thanks Haz.” Zayn snags the bag away from him and tries to reach inside for one more cookie without pulling off the elastic first. “Nah, though. I get seasick too easily to be a pirate. Inigo Montoya though, he was really cool.”

Harry tries to steal the bag back from Zayn, who spins away and darts around to the other side of the table. Harry’s eyes narrow determinedly, and he tries to run after him, but Zayn keeps the table in between them.

Niall can’t help but notice Zayn runs a bit like a penguin, which is, well. Completely endearing, to say the least.

No one seems to remember the Westley thing, and in fact, Niall’s pretty sure he’s the only one who thought it might be embarrassing in the first place. And just like that, Niall can breath easy again, near-crisis averted.

He loses sight of Harry for a moment, and then there’s a sleek, black cat leaping across the table and clinging to Zayn’s hip. Zayn stops moving for a moment, giving Harry a chance to scale up his back until he’s perching on his shoulders. Then he’s back to waving his arms around again, trying to block him from reaching the oreos.

Liam rolls his eyes at them fondly. The milk carton is a split second away from becoming a casualty to the little tussle. Liam reaches out, and Niall’s eyes widen a little when a rosy pink bubble surfaces from between his fingers and encircles the carton. Zayn and Harry don’t take any notice of the shielded milk as it rises above their heads and floats back to Liam.

Niall forces himself to look away in order to wash his dishes. It’s captivating, watching a group of people so completely at ease with using their powers around each other. Niall never really knew anyone back home who was Powered, and while he wasn’t lonely by any means, he’d still catch himself wishing he had at least one friend to share that sort of thing with.

“Here.” Niall turns to see Zayn holding out a tea towel. Harry’s draped around his neck now, looking like a contented furry boa. The oreos are out of sight, so Niall assumes they’re tucked away in the cupboard now.

“Oh, thank you.”

Zayn nods in response, then squints at something on Niall’s arm.

“You’ve got a thing,” he mutters. He starts to reach out, but Harry’s tail swats his nose and he catches Niall’s eye. “Sorry um, can I?”

Niall nods, perhaps a bit too quickly if the sudden twinge in the back of his head is anything to go by. Stupid concussion.

Zayn carefully picks off a small piece of dirt, and then another and another. Liam is leaning against the counter next to the sink and leans in to brush a cloud of dust off Niall’s other sleeve. Niall winces.

“You don’t have a change of clothes, do you?”

“Oh.” Niall blinks up at Harry leaning over Zayn’s shoulder, hadn’t even noticed him changing back. “No, I don’t.”

Harry nods and declares Niall can borrow some of his pajamas. Then he’s pulling away from Zayn and darting out of the room before Niall has a chance to say anything else.

“Alright, then.” Niall politely sidesteps away from the pair of nitpickers to follow him. They’d have to go at it all night if they actually meant to clean this shirt like that, and Niall’s still tired. “It was really nice to see you two. I guess I’ll run into you again soon?”

“Oh, most definitely. Bye for now!” Liam waves goodbye like people often wave to small children, as though he’s squeezing a tiny ball in his palm.

Niall doesn’t even think about it, just automatically waves back in kind, but Zayn nudges Liam with a snicker. “Li, I reckon Niall’s graduated preschool a long time ago.”

“Oh, gosh, right! I’m so sorry Niall, I work with little kids, and I get so used to interacting with them that sometimes I treat old people the same way.”

Zayn snorts and Niall starts giggling along with him. He can’t help himself, it’s infectious.

“I mean, not that you’re _old_.” Liam smacks his forehead. “Sorry. I meant like, older than 5.”

Niall wipes his eyes and shares an amused grin with Zayn. “S’all good. Nighty night.”

“Sweet dreams,” Zayn says. Niall imagines they probably will be. It’s been a pretty great day, all things considered.

With that, Niall follows Harry up the stairs. His knee twinges when he starts up the steps, but oh. That’s right. Niall can float here as much as he likes without bothering anyone, and his headache isn’t bothering him anymore.

Harry meets him back in Zayn’s room brandishing a magenta velvet onesie that fits Niall like a snuggie, which isn’t really a quality Niall looks for when he’s picking out clothing. Still, it is very soft and smells freshly cleaned, so he accepts it without fussing too much.

“Did you need anything else? I can tell Louis to nab your toothbrush if you want?”

Niall runs his tongue over his teeth. “Maybe, yeah, if it’s no hassle.”

Harry grins, already pulling his sleeve back to talk into the radio-watch-thingy. Niall makes a note to ask what they’re all about in the morning. “It’s no hassle.”

Louis pops in with Niall’s toothbrush no more than a minute later.

“What took you so long?” Harry asks, hands on hips.

Louis’ eyes widen, and he opens his mouth to retort.

“Not now with the toothbrush, I mean.” Harry waves dismissively. “You never came back from feeding Beatrice before. It can’t have taken you that long to do.”

“Oh, that. Well, I’ve never seen a hedgehog up close before, so we were just chilling out together this whole time.”

“ _Louis!_ ” Harry hisses. “That’s weird.”

“What? It is not! How is it - oh.” He winces and turns to glance at Niall. “Um, I didn’t mean to hang out at your house while you weren’t there for so long.”

“That’s okay.” Niall says. “So long as you weren’t going through all my stuff, I’m kinda glad Beatrice got to meet someone new. Next time I’ll invite you in myself, and it won’t be weird at all.”

“Sounds cool. Cheers!” Louis tosses Niall back the key, vanishing from the hallway before he can catch it.

Harry rolls his eyes fondly and escorts Niall to the bathroom.

“I can give you a proper tour of the place in the morning,” he says, hovering absentmindedly behind Niall’s shoulder while he washes his face in the sink. “Oh wait. No, I can’t.” Harry sighs. “I’ve got an early shift at the shop tomorrow, but someone will show you around. Maybe Liam. Or Zayn, or Louis.” Niall rolls his eyes at that, because _duh_. That’s literally everyone who lives here, who else would do it?

“Thanks Haz,” Niall dries his face. “Um.” Niall takes a step towards the toilet, but Harry still doesn’t move. “D’you mind if I take a wee in privacy?”

“Oh yeah, of course.” Harry catches hold of the door on his way out and chuckles. “I mean, of course I _don’t_ mind.” He pulls the door shut behind him, then pops it open again. “Just holler if you need anything, alright?”

“Alright.” Niall smiles at Harry despite the increasingly painful pressure in his bladder. “Goodnight Harry.”

 *

 The sun is peeking through the edges of the blinds when Niall wakes up, so he figures it must be a reasonable hour to get up.

His toes catch on a pair of bunny slippers next to the bed. He’s pretty sure they weren’t there when he went to sleep. There’s a note on top of one of them, wishing Niall a good morning and instructing him to go down the hallway and knock on the last door to the left when he wakes up.

The house is quiet. Niall’s footsteps do little to disrupt the silence, softened further by the slippers. He washes up in the bathroom first, because no one deserves to experience Niall’s morning breath to start off the day.

Niall raps his knuckles against the door at the end of the hall and waits. There’s a snort inside the room like a cut-off snore.

“Yeah?”

“It’s Niall, can I come in?”

“One sec!” There’s the unmistakable sound of someone falling out of bed and cursing. Then Zayn opens the door, still struggling to get into a white-ish Adidas t-shirt.

“Morning!” Zayn says through the shirt.

“Morning. Hey, sorry, did I wake you?” Niall asks. Zayn has that soft, adorably disheveled look that some people, for reasons Niall cannot fathom, manage to pull off when they’re sleepy. Niall reckons he looks like the living dead when he’s just woken up.

“Nah. I mean, not really?” Zayn looks very pleased about finally getting the shirt on properly. “I was already like, two-thirds awake already.” Niall tilts his head, because he’s never heard of that, and Zayn hastens to explain.

“Like, y’know when you wake up, but you’re still feeling all nice and toasty, so you just lay there for a bit with your eyes closed. Just savouring the last bits of your dreams, maybe, and that feeling like you could almost drift back to sleep, but you know you have to get up at some point, so you just enjoy it for as long as you can without actually getting out of bed or going back to sleep, y’know?”

“I dunno.” Zayn shrugs dismissively when Niall doesn’t respond right away. “It’s probably just a weird me-thing.”

“Oh no, it totally makes sense!” Niall hastily assures him. “I’d just never heard it put into words before, is all.” Sometimes Niall likes to take his own sweet time to properly absorb certain things, and Zayn’s quietly passionate words are very much one of those things.

Niall never got away with sleeping in much at home, but it was a rare treat when he did.

“But hey, you don’t have to get up on my account if you’d rather sleep in a bit more. I’m sure y’all need as much sleep as you can catch in this business.”

“Nah, it’s fine.” Zayn yawns, arms stretching up above his head. “I wanted to show you around anyways cos, um. Harry said you might like a little tour before breakfast and I’m free, so.”

“Wicked. Do I have you to thank for the bunnies too, then?” Niall wiggles his toes, reveling in the feel of the soft material.

“Yeah, that’d be me.” Zayn glances down and Niall notices then that he’s wearing baby penguin-shaped slippers. “I can’t stand dealing with cold floors first thing in the morning, figured you might be the same.”

“That’s very considerate of you, cheers. They’re quite cozy.”

“And we’re matching a little, too.” Zayn rubs a hand through his hair. “Er, this is Louis’ room, by the way.” He gestures towards the closed door behind him. “It’s a mess, trust me. If you thought mine was bad, that was nothing.” He starts off down the hallway, back the way Niall came and he follows.

“I thought your room was nice. Seems more like organized chaos than straight-up messy. I bet you’re one of those people who wouldn’t be able to find a single thing if someone surprised you with a cleaned room.”

Zayn’s head tilts back and forth, considering. “Yeah, that’s a pretty fair assessment. Did you sleep okay?”

“Yep, snug as a bug.” Niall nearly mentions how nice the sheets smelled, but he catches himself just in time. That could be weird. “Thanks again for letting me stay there.”

“Like I said, s’chill.” They pass Zayn’s room again. “There’s me, but you knew that already.”

The house is even bigger than Niall thought it was when he went to sleep last night. There’s another floor above them with Liam and Harry’s rooms, then there’s another one above that, which Zayn says is mostly storage space.

“Wanna fix up a couple proper guest rooms eventually, but for now they’re just full of junk.”

There’s a trapdoor at the end of the hallway that leads up to the roof, which is pretty much the best thing ever. Niall has to stop himself from rushing past Zayn to get to the top of it.

The rooftop is flat, with a sturdy railing that wraps around the edges of it. Niall walks past a telescope to rest his arms against the cool steel.

“Woah.” It’s pretty high up, even by Niall’s standards. They’re on a hill in the outskirts of town, and from here Niall can look over most of the buildings, can even make out the sparkling of the river hugging the houses along one side of the city. “I think I can see my apartment from here.”

“Pretty cool, innit?” Zayn settles against the railing next to Niall. Their elbows aren’t quite touching, but his closeness alone makes Niall feel a little warm. “Comes in handy for our line of work too, even without the ‘scope.”

“Yeah, I bet.” Niall tilts forward to see how far away the ground is and whistles. “Shit, how big is this place?”

“It’s sizeable.” Zayn chuckles, seemingly amused by the awestruck expressions racing across Niall’s face. “C’mon, I’ll show you the rest of it. You still have to see the best part.”

Privately, Niall doubts that anything could top the roof, but he looks forward to seeing whatever part of the house is Zayn’s favourite.

Below Zayn’s room is the kitchen and living room, with another door hidden in one of the closets that leads to the basement; ideal for superhero activities like training, doing laundry, and now apparently storing dinosaurs.

It would seem Zayn and Niall have very different definitions of what qualifies as ‘the best.’

Zayn hoists up a bucket of fish to his chest and tilts his head towards the stairs. “Well? Wanna meet our other houseguest?” Zayn looks a lot more cheery than Niall feels, but he nods. He wonders if the dinosaur will retain any ill will towards him after their crash landing together.

The Pteranodon lets out a terrible screech as soon as they open the door. Niall promptly hides behind Zayn’s back.

“I don’t think he likes me.”

“What?” Zayn seems completely unphased and nudges the door closed behind them. Well, there goes their escape route. “That’s his friendly screech, can’t you tell?”

“Uh, no?” The Pteranodon screeches again, and it sounds like the last moments of someone being attacked by a flock of bloodthirsty parrots. If that’s a friendly screech, Niall would hate to hear an angry one.

Zayn sets the bucket of fish down on the floor, which has begun to vibrate beneath their feet. Oh god, he’s going to run them down.

“Niall, come on.” Zayn reaches around to tug on Niall’s shoulder. “He’s really sweet, I swear. I sat with him for hours after we brought him back here yesterday.”

Slowly, Niall peers around the relative safety of Zayn’s elbow.

The Pteranodon is _right there_ , peering down at Niall with beady yellow eyes, the sharp tip of his long beak just inches away from his face.

“Oh god,” Niall hisses as calmly as he can.

Zayn, who is apparently a terrible person after all, steps away from Niall and hands him the bucket of fish. Niall grabs a hold of it automatically, even though smelling like food is exactly what he _doesn’t_ need right now.

The Pteranodon gobbles unhelpfully, and Niall stiffens. Zayn chuckles, but not unkindly. “It’s alright, really. Just toss him a fish. He wasn’t this scary when you were flying yesterday, was he?”

“Yesterday was different.” Niall picks up one of the fish by the tail webbing, touching it as little as possible between his fingernails, and tosses it as hard as he can. He was hoping it would go high over his head, but the dinosaur snatches it out of the air easily and gulps it down, then goes right back to staring at Niall.

“I was scared, but I didn’t really have a chance to think about it,” Niall says. He tosses another fish. “Things are always easier when I’m in the air anyways.”

“For what it’s worth, I definitely would’ve been freaking out. I hate heights.” Zayn pulls a fish out of the bucket and holds it out in his palm. Instead of biting his hand off as Niall would’ve expected, the dinosaur scoops the fish up into his massive beak with the most careful of movements.

“Good boy,” Zayn murmurs and scratches under the Pteranodon’s chin. He immediately tilts his head back for better access, and Zayn beckons Niall to join him. Hesitantly, Niall steps forward until his fingertips are brushing against the folds of skin underneath the dinosaur’s chin.

Niall didn’t get a good chance to look at him before, but the dinosaur’s actually kind of pretty to look at. His hide is a sort of smoky, grey-ish white, speckled with ombre flecks of blue. Niall wonders if the colouring helps him blend into the sky.

He hadn’t noticed the hair before either. It’s thickest around his belly, and the white hairs are a bit coarse, like bristles on a new toothbrush. They thin out towards the extremities, growing sparser and softer. Scratching the skin under his beak feels a bit like petting a peach.

He makes a low gurgling sound, and this time even Niall can tell that it’s a happy one. If he were a dog, one of his legs would definitely be thumping around now.

“I named him Bucky,” Zayn says, sounding very much like a proud parent. “He’s wicked, isn’t he?”

Yeah alright, Niall can admit he’s not quite so terrifying up close after all. Which is quite a relief. When he actually thought about what he’d agreed to do and what it would entail, he spent half the night kicking himself.

Niall imagined he’d be aggressive and refuse to so much as tolerate being in the same room as him. He started worrying about how disappointed Zayn would be when Niall inevitably had to admit it was impossible. He wasn’t sure which prospect was worse, even though the answer should have been obvious.

But now it doesn’t seem impossible at all, and Niall finds himself genuinely looking forward to the prospect of working with Bucky, and not just because of the smile on Zayn’s face right now. Although that certainly doesn’t hurt.

“He’s pretty neat,” Niall agrees. “I guess I didn’t really have much of a chance to get to know him earlier.”

“Yeah, that’s understandable. I imagine all the old monster movies wouldn’t have helped much either.”

“No, not really.” Their fingers brush under Bucky’s chin, but Zayn doesn’t jerk away, so Niall doesn’t either. “Wouldn’t have guessed they could be like this.”

“Yeah, well. I suppose it’d be too boring if certain things were marketed so they wouldn’t terrify everyone.” Zayn’s watch beeps, and he brings it up to his face. “The other two are starting brekkie soon, we should go join them.”

Niall nods. “What is that thing, by the way? I’ve been meaning to ask, I noticed you all have them.”

Zayn holds it out for Niall to see. “They’re like these cool little watch gadgets. They look like a watch, and even keep time like a watch, but they actually help us keep in contact with each other on missions. Each one is specifically designed for us, like Harry’s will shrink or expand as needed when he’s shifting, and they can monitor our breathing and heart rates and all that. Couple of my mates back home helped design them.”

“Wow, that’s so cool!”

“I know.” Zayn spreads out the rest of the fish for Bucky. “C’mon, we don’t want them to start without us.”

Zayn catches Niall’s sleeve when the stairs empty out into the hallway on the main floor. Niall swings around to face him and _holy moly_. This close, Zayn’s eyelashes are like small wings fanning themselves whenever he blinks.

“I just, um.” Zayn bites his lip nervously and Niall waits, lets him gather his thoughts out loud. “Louis told me it was you who got my bag back to me a while ago, which, um.” Zayn seems to realize he’s still got a hold of Niall’s sleeve and quickly lets go. Niall’s arm is still stretched out towards him for a few moments in the ghost of his grip before he drops it back to his side.

“I kind of already guessed it was you,” Zayn continues, “and I wanted to say thank you, back in the shop, but I’m kinda shy and I guess I can be a little awkward too sometimes, so. Thanks for what you did. It really helped us out that day, and I’m sorry I never said anything.”

“Hey, you don’t have to apologize,” Niall assures him.  “I never expected you to talk to me at all, so it’s fine, really!”

“Alright.” Niall’s stomach gurgles suddenly, and Zayn’s echoes the sentiment before Niall’s can finish. Zayn chuckles, and reaches out to poke Niall’s belly button, and Niall stealthily catches hold of his wrist before he gets poked.

“Breakfast?” Zayn asks.

“Sounds like a plan.”

It takes Niall an embarrassingly long moment to realize he’s got to let go of Zayn’s hand if he wants to go get food. Zayn smiles, and somehow it doesn’t feel awkward at all.

 *

 In the kitchen, Liam and Louis are fiddling around the stove. Zayn mentioned earlier that they’d had a training session that morning. Niall supposes it went well, because Louis is whistling.

Liam turns around when they step in and nearly does another baby wave. “Hi Niall! Did you sleep well?”

“Great, thank you! Zayn was just showing me around your house.”

“Ooh yes.” Liam leans against the counter, giving Niall his full attention. “What do you think of it?”

“God, it’s wonderful! It’s like a five-year-old designed their dream house, except it’s actually real!”

“Aw!” Liam beams and clutches his chest. “That’s got to be the very best thing anyone’s ever said about it.”

“Zayn was a suitable tour guide for you, then?” Louis asks, twirling a spatula between his fingers.

Niall nods. “Oh yeah, Zayn’s great!”

“That he is,” Louis agrees, looking strangely amused. “When he’s not snoring in your ear, of course.”

“I do not snore,” Zayn grumbles.

“Not that you’d know it,” Louis continues. “I’m glad to hear you make such a good tour guide, though. Since I did actually offer first, but you insis-”

“-You had your early morning training session, remember?” Zayn cuts in. “I was helping you out, wasn’t I?”

Louis pauses with the spatula mid-twirl, as though he actually has to think about it. “Oh yes, now that you mention it… I think I do recall _someone_ offering to help someone out.” Louis scratches his scalp with the handle of the spatula. “Oh gosh, what was it now?”

Niall isn’t really paying attention to them anymore and doesn’t catch the frantic throat-cutting motions Zayn’s making behind him while he wanders over to the stove.

“Anything I can help with?”

Liam glances up from the pan of scrambling eggs. They smell wonderful.

“Thank you, but I think we’ve got it covered.”

“I could set the table?” Niall offers. He catches himself about to nibble a thumbnail and scratches his nose instead.

Liam shakes his head. “Already done.”

Niall has no qualms about accepting free food, but they’ve all done so much for him already. It feels weird that he hasn’t done anything to contribute.

His parents worked odd hours, and Niall learned to be self-sufficient fairly early on. He actually quite likes cooking and cleaning, likes how it makes him feel when he looks at a freshly waxed floor or a steaming hot meal, knowing he made it happen.

“Come sit down,” Louis says, suddenly next to Niall and draping an arm around his shoulders.

“Oh.” Niall blinks slowly, because he heard Louis talking across the room only a moment ago, but Niall allows himself be led towards the table without protest. He doesn’t exactly spook easily, but Louis’ speedy appearances and disappearances might take some time getting used to.

There’s a mischievous gleam in Louis’ eyes, and Niall’s not sure what he’s thinking, but he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t be too fond of it if he did.

“Lou, c’mon.” Liam’s facing away from them, but he must have known Louis long enough to guess what’s going on. “Don’t tease Niall, it’s too early for that.”

“I am not teasing!” Louis protests. “I’m _showing off_. Do try to make an effort, Liam.” He swishes through the air in front of Niall till he’s wrapping himself around Niall’s other side. “You ever seen a speedster up close before?” he asks, leaning in a few inches away from Niall’s face to demonstrate ‘up close.’

“No.” Niall shakes his head and, unfazed by the invasion to his personal space, boops Louis on the tip of his nose.

It must take Louis by surprise, because he actually takes a step back.

His face runs through a jumble of emotions, finally settling on something like befuddled amusement, like no one’s ever pushed back before. He seems delighted that Niall would.

Zayn snatches everyone’s attention then, when he clomps past them and yanks out a chair with an unusual amount of force, scraping the legs loudly against the floor, before clambering into it with a scowl. Niall didn’t think anybody could walk that loudly with fluffy penguin slippers on their feet.

He’s not sure what that’s all about. Perhaps he was concerned Niall was going to take his seat? No one else seems to takes notice of it, so maybe it’s not weird, and Niall doesn’t want to be rude by drawing attention to it.

His thoughts drift back to Louis’ question, which was probably hypothetical, but Niall finds he does have an answer to it anyway.

“Actually,” Niall says, “I don’t think I’ve ever met _anybody_ else with powers before.”

“Really?” Zayn shifts in his seat and meets Niall’s eyes over the back of the chair. He’s not scowling anymore.

“Yeah...” Niall looks down. Harry’s onesie has pockets and Niall shoves his hands into them. “I’m from a really small town and when I moved here it was first time I’ve ever really traveled somewhere else, especially somewhere this big. There was one old lady my parents told me about, she actually lived down the street from us, I think. Her hair turned purple when she was happy, but she passed away when I was still in diapers, so that wouldn’t really count.”

“Ah.” Zayn bites his lip, looking like he’d like to say more, but isn’t sure what exactly.

Then it’s quiet for a long moment, and Niall starts to worry that he’s sucked all the carefree, happy vibes out of the room. He didn’t mean to, but he’s never been much good at softening the edge of difficult things, only knows how to talk about shit straightforward, deadpan, flat out. Things were always as bad or as good as they were going to be, no matter how you worded them.

“Everyone’s having tea?” Liam asks, brandishing the kettle a little too eagerly. Everybody nods and Liam spins around to pull mugs out of the cupboard. Niall gets the feeling that Liam may be the sort to offer food or bring up the weather when he’s feeling awkward. Thank goodness for those sorts.

“So, Niall,” Louis pipes up, clearing his throat. The gleam is gone from his eyes now, like he’s discarded whatever devious thing he was plotting. “How do we do for a first impression?”

Niall shrugs, feigning casual disinterest. “Not bad, I suppose.”

“ _Not bad_?” Louis gasps, looking like Niall just insulted his whole family and then some. “Not excellent? Superb? A delight beyond your wildest dreams?!”

Niall chuckles. Just like that, the atmosphere feels light again. He thinks Louis might’ve let Niall bait him on purpose.

“Yeah, yeah, ‘course you are. Reckon you’re the coolest Powered kids I ever could’ve met.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it.” Louis offers Niall a fist bump. “Here, you can sit next to Zayn,” Louis says, guiding Niall into his seat. “See if you can cheer him up.”

Niall frowns and turns to Zayn in concern. “Why, what’s wrong?”

Zayn’s scowling again, but he quickly tries to school his face into something more relaxed when Niall looks at him. It’s a very odd look, and Niall would laugh if he knew for certain it wasn’t about anything serious.

“Nothing’s the matter,” Zayn mutters. He drags a hand over his face and through his hair, pushing it back off his forehead. “I’m just kind of cranky before I have my caffeine in the morning, sorry.”

That’s odd, because Niall thought Zayn made for perfectly pleasant company during the tour, but he decides not to mention it. Zayn doesn’t really know him, so of course he’d make a big effort to be polite and charming in the company of a stranger. It makes sense that he’d start relaxing enough surrounded with his friends to let his crankiness show.

“How do you like your tea, Niall?” Louis asks, on the other side of the kitchen again.

“3 sugars, please.”

“Ugh.” Louis spoons the sugar into Niall’s cup with as much prejudice as he can physically muster on his face. “Liam’s the same - I’m surrounded by ruiners of good tea. It’s disgusting.”

Niall shrugs, not offended in the least. “I like what I like.”

“Mhm,” Louis hums, eyes on Zayn as he carries the mugs of tea over. Zayn seems to be ignoring him again.

“Oh, would you relax,” Louis snorts, setting down the tea in front of them. “Your face is gonna freeze like that.”

Zayn sticks out his tongue.

Liam coughs and sits across from them. “Did you tell Niall about the house’s moniker yet?”

“Word of the day,” Louis mutters.

“Come on, how do you always-” Liam frowns. “It wasn’t that obvious.”

Zayn grins over the rim of his teacup. “I’m sure you’ll sneak it past him someday. But no, we didn’t get around to that bit. You always explain it better anyway.”

“What bit?” Niall cuts in.

“The house’s _moniker_ ,” Liam repeats firmly over the giggles of his teammates. “We decided to call it the Burrow.”

“The Burrow? Like from Harry Potter?”

Liam nods. The other two have abandoned their teasing in favour of quietly sword fighting with their rolled up napkins. Somehow, it strikes Niall as being more respectful.

“It’s just, it sort of looks the way I always pictured it in the books - it’s quite big and maybe a little ridiculous looking, but it always felt so cozy on the inside. Besides Hogwarts, it was always where I thought I wanted to be if, y’know, magic and wizardry and all that stuff was _real_.” Liam rolls his eyes.

“Every time I started a book, I always hoped that Harry would end up moving there with the Weasleys in it. I mean, anywhere would’ve been better than the Dursleys, but like. I think the Burrow was more of a second home than Hogwarts was for Harry, in some ways. Like, everyone who lived there really cared about Harry and always wanted the best for him. And I loved how Mrs. Weasley was always trying to make Harry feel more at home wherever he was, sending him hand-knitted sweaters and things the way she did with the rest of her kids.”

Louis and Zayn are no longer swordfighting. They’re just watching Liam, smiling fondly as if this were the first time they’ve heard this story, though Niall’s certain that can’t be the case. They’re practically chin-handsing, and Niall feels the same. He already liked the house, but hearing Liam talk about what it means to him makes it feel ten times better.

“In short, we all wanted our own new home together to feel safe and warm and welcoming like that, so we call it the Burrow. Plus,” Liam adds, “The Burrow didn’t have big, dangerous monsters lurking in the bathroom or murderous trees in the backyard or evil wizards constantly trying to infiltrate the building and off students or anything like that, which was one thing I never fancied about Hogwarts.”

“I mean, you do realize we have a big, dangerous monster lurking in our basement right now, right?” Louis gripes. “I still can’t believe you want to keep that thing.”

“His name is Bucky,” Zayn protests. “And he’s really sweet once you take the time to get to know him.”

Louis huffs, crossing his arms. “Not bloody likely.” He sniffs the air suddenly, and then his chair’s clattering to the floor as he races to the stove.

“Oh no.” He switches off the heat under one of the frying pans and looks at it sadly. “Sorry, Niall. We have a tradition where guests are supposed to get the first pancake, but the bottom of yours got burnt.”

Niall’s stomach growls, almost like it’s protesting. He didn’t realize how hungry he was until faced with the prospect of breakfast being taken away. “I’m sure it’s not that bad,” Niall insists. “I can just scrape it off or whatever.”

He douses it in jam and maple syrup, and it tastes just fine.

 *

 After breakfast, Niall insists on clearing the table and doing the dishes.

“Please,” he insists. “You made the food, _and_ let me sleep here, _and_ leant me pajamas.”

“We take no responsibility for that last one,” Louis mutters.

“You don’t owe us anything though?” Zayn says. “You’re our guest and we’re happy to have you here. We don’t like, expect you to pay us back or anything like that.”

“I know, it’s just.” It’s important to Niall, to feel like he’s contributing to the household, regardless of whether or not he’s actually part of it. “I would like to help you out. Not because I have to, but because I _want_ to.”

“Hey, I’m not gonna argue if you really wanna do chores.” Louis tilts back in his seat and folds his arms behind his head. “Knock yourself out.”

Liam finishes stacking the plates together and pushes it towards Niall. “Thank you, Niall.”

Niall grins at him, pleased to have got that sorted out.

“No problem,” he says. Liam does something a bit odd with his eyes. It’s a very endearing attempt at winking, Niall realizes. He thinks maybe Liam understands how he feels.

He pulls the bottle of dish soap from it’s spot under the sink next to the plastic bag filled with plastic bags. The water takes a minute to warm up, and Niall doesn’t hear the sound of footsteps until there’s a light touch at his elbow.

“Hey, um.” Zayn’s holding a dish towel again. “I wondered if you wanted someone to dry?”

There’s no force behind the offer, nothing to suggest he thinks Niall _needs_ help with the dishes. He feels certain that Zayn would simply nod and leave without a fuss if Niall insisted it was fine. He wouldn’t mind the company, though.

“Sure,” he says, shifting over a couple inches in invitation.

Zayn grins, but doesn’t say anything to fill the silence. It doesn’t feel uncomfortable, but Niall would like to pursue a conversation anyway.

“So, uh. Speaking of cleaning, I gotta say I’m impressed with the state of this place. It’s absolutely massive, but I don’t think I saw a spec of dust anywhere. How do you manage?”

“With great difficulty,” Zayn says, trailing off into a yawn. “Excuse me. We’ve got cleaning days. We each get a section to work on, and then we shuffle it around every week or so and then by the end of each month we do a big one and the whole house is pristine. For the most part, anyways.”

“Huh. I guess Louis must be good at that.”

Zayn snorts. “You’d think so with his powers, but nope. Very much nope.”

 *

 Zayn offers to give Niall a ride home afterwards. Which is nice, except Niall’s never been on a motorcycle before and he’s not sure how he feels about them.

Zayn gives him a choice between two helmets; one silver with a lightning bolt streaking along the sides and one a glittering purple. Zayn seems to favour the silver one, so Niall takes the purple.

Zayn starts it up before gesturing for Niall to climb on. There’s a loud roar that settles to a low rumble that has the whole thing vibrating. It’s too late now for Niall to opt out for a flight home, and he clambers on behind Zayn.

The bike doesn’t fall over, but Niall fumbles with the placement of his hands. It feels like he could topple off at any moment, but there’s not exactly another set of handlebars for him to grab onto.

“Around me,” Zayn says as though reading his mind.

“Oh, yeah. Of course.” Niall shuffles back in the seat and rests his hands lightly against Zayn’s ribs.

“Mate…” Zayn encircles Niall’s wrist with one of his gloves and tugs it forward. “You need to have a better grip than that if you don’t wanna fall off.”

Right, Niall definitely doesn’t want to do that. He locks his fingers tight together across Zayn’s midriff. He doesn’t mean to, but the spike of worry at the thought of falling off causes him to squeeze a bit too much and Zayn jumps a little.

“You okay?”

Niall nods. He really, really hopes it’s not possible to feel someone’s heartbeat through several layers of clothing. Other than that, he’s fine.

“Hey.” Zayn flips up the visor and tilts his head over his shoulder to speak to Niall. “You don’t have to worry, I promise I would never let you fall. And, not to brag or anything, but I’m pretty sick at driving this.”

Niall smiles into his helmet and adjusts his grip again, allowing himself to relax a little against Zayn. “Alright. I think I’m good.”

“Just lean with me a little on the turns, and you’ve got nothing to worry about! You can even keep your eyes closed if you like, but no matter what, just know that I’ll get you home safe and sound. Promise.” They pinky swear on it.

Oddly enough, the scariest bit is when they’re slowly pulling out of the driveway. When they hit the road and start picking up speed, Niall starts feeling better.

Despite his initial misgivings about riding the motorbike, Niall finds himself wishing it would go on a lot longer. Zayn’s clearly in his element, and at the first stoplight Niall mentions that he’s welcome to go a little faster, if he wants.

Zayn chuckles and speeds up, just a little, when the lights are in their favour. It’s exhilarating to feel the air rushing past his body without so much as thinking about controlling his movement. Niall closes his eyes, but he’s not afraid.

Zayn points things out to Niall as they go by. His voice is loud when he does, but it’s not quite a yell against the wind. They’re so close, Niall can almost feel Zayn’s voice moving through him every time he speaks.

Niall really ought to go out and explore the city more. Perhaps with Zayn, since he seems like such a good tour guide…

All too soon, the bike slows down to a stop on Niall’s street. Niall can’t help squeezing Zayn again when the bike tilts to the side, but they don’t fall over. Zayn flicks out the kickstand and pat’s Niall’s arm reassuringly.

“See? Got you back here safe and sound, just like I promised.”

Niall supposes he should let go of Zayn now. He doesn’t really want to, was actually very much enjoying the warmth radiating from his jacket, and how it offset the cool air whipping past them.

He only wobbles a little bit when he steps off, and Zayn is immediately there to steady him.

He offers to walk Niall up to his flat. He hopes it isn’t because he’s still worrying about him after yesterday, but he readily accepts the offer without enquiring.

They pass beneath a chokecherry, and Niall ducks automatically to avoid the tree’s tiny occupants that hang around this time of year. He doesn’t think to warn Zayn until it’s too late.

“Oh, sorry.” Zayn looks confused, until Niall points out a tiny green worm crawling up his shoulder. “You’ve got more on your head. Can I?” Zayn instantly bends down in a partial bow, even though they’re pretty much the same height.

“Careful,” he says. “They’re only little.”

Niall nods and carefully extracts 3 more worms parachuting down the sides of Zayn’s head. He tries not to think about how soft his hair is as he brushes through it.

Zayn’s eyes are closed. He looks far calmer than Niall would be if someone was pulling bugs out of his hair. These ones are pretty harmless, he supposes, so long as you’re not a tree.

Zayn insists on finding all the worms a little spot back in the tree before they go up to Niall’s apartment. Niall tries not to be endeared with Zayn’s gentle treatment of the little creatures. He has no fondness for bugs himself, but Zayn’s acting like some sort of Disney Princess about them.

If he gets this excited over worms, he’s going to lose it over Beatrice. Niall can’t help smiling a little in anticipation.

“Hey, you should pop in for a minute, meet my other half,” he jokes.

Something in Zayn tightens for a moment, like a wire pulling taught throughout his whole body. Niall wonders if Zayn runs out of energy to socialize sometimes, but hedgehogs are quite chill as far as hanging out goes.

Or maybe it’s Niall, and Zayn’s only been polite taking him all the way to his door, when he really wants to go back home to the Burrow as soon as possible. Niall really hopes that’s not it, but he can’t bring himself to ask.

“Just for a moment,” Niall adds, softer. The key is being very stubborn about going into the lock. “I think you’ll really like her.”

“Okay,” Zayn says softly, and Niall tries not to take the lack of enthusiasm personally.

He finds Beatrice halfway through a yawn near the couch.

“Ta-da! This is Beatrice.” Zayn slowly takes in the creature in Niall’s hands, and his eyes widen comically.

“Your hedgehog!” His shoulders slump a little in something like relief. “Sorry, I totally forgot. I thought you had someb- Um, that you were talking about a… never mind.”

Niall tilts his head quizzically.

“It’s just the sun! Starting to get to my head and stuff, sorry.”

“Oh!” That makes a lot of sense. “I’ll go grab you some water. Did you want to hold her?”

“Hell yes!”

When Niall comes back with two glasses, it’s to find Zayn sitting on the couch, Only, he’s not sitting exactly. His body is arched and twisting, eyes wide like he’s in pain.

“Oh, thank god,” Zayn croaks when he spots Niall. He sets the glasses down on the coffee table so quickly, he spills half the water all over the floor.

“What is it? What’s the matter?”

Zayn sets his teeth and shudders. “Beatrice crawled up my shirt and I can’t reach her.”

“Oh!” Here Niall was thinking Zayn was dying. “Whereabouts?”

“Back,” Zayn grunts and makes a move like he’s trying to roll over. Niall quickly extracts the little lump from halfway up (or down - it’s hard to tell where Beatrice was headed) Zayn’s back. Zayn exhales and flops back on the couch like a limp noodle.

“Sorry, she does that. I should’ve warned you.” Zayn makes grabby hands, and Niall hands over Beatrice again. “What was with all the acrobatics?”

“Didn’t want to squish her.” Zayn settles Beatrice in his lap. “And I’m really ticklish, almost as much as Louis.” He suddenly looks worried. “Shoot. Don’t tell him I said that. He says it’s one of his biggest weaknesses.”

Niall mimes zipping his mouth closed. Zayn strokes a couple fingers over Beatrice’s quills, and she dozes off within moments.

“She really likes you.” Niall’s never seen her fall asleep so fast with someone else.

Zayn is beaming. “The feeling’s mutual.”

They chat for a while longer, long enough that Niall thinks it necessary to fetch a box of his favourite digestives to share.

Zayn also gets Niall’s number, so the others can contact him later about coming over to train Bucky. Niall nods, because that makes perfect sense, though he wouldn’t have minded giving him his number _just because_.

There’s a bit of a moment, after Zayn gets up to leave and reluctantly hands Beatrice over at the door, where Niall isn’t sure if he should go in for a hug. He usually would, except he has been secretly crushing over someone that looks like Zayn from afar for awhile now. Zayn doesn’t seem like he ever noticed it before, and Niall doesn’t want to weird him out now.

Then Zayn reaches out and pulls Niall into a hug, catching him slightly off guard so he goes up on tiptoes.

“It really was great to get to meet you, finally,” Zayn murmurs into the hug. “It’s a shame it wasn’t the most ideal for you, being tossed around by Bucky and all.”

Niall chuckles. “Turned out alright though, didn’t it?”

“Yes,” Zayn agrees, smiling as he pulls away. “It did.”

Niall spots another worm as he turns to go. He pulls it off Zayn’s ear, where it was dangling like a piece of living jewelry.

“Sorry, must’ve missed this one.”

Zayn chuckles and holds out a hand. “Here, I’ll go put ‘em back in the tree.” He carefully closes his fingers around the little worm so it won’t fall. It really shouldn’t be so endearing, but it is.

“And it was good to meet you too, Lil Bea,” Zayn murmurs, ducking down to scratch Beatrice under her chin. “See you both later.” He waves a little, before jogging down the stairs.

Niall stares at the door for a long moment after he’s gone.

He knows that the boy he’d been fancying from afar for so long wasn’t Zayn, not really.

It’s annoying then, that the way Niall felt about Cute Stranger hasn’t changed now that he’s met Zayn and gotten to know him a bit. It makes sense, he supposes, that the remnants of the crush wouldn’t just magically disappear. But it looks as though Niall may be seeing a lot more of Zayn now, so he’d better figure out how to hide it.

He can feel his reprimanding inner thoughts starting up with a lecture (and when did they start sounding so much like Harry?) and Niall resolves not to think about it any longer.

It’ll probably fade in time anyway.

 *

Niall hears from them a couple days after Zayn dropped him off, when Harry texts asking if he’ll be free the next weekend to come over and work with Bucky. He almost missed the text at first, buried as it was in between half a dozen of Harry’s favourite Philosoraptor quotes.

They’ve heard back from a Jurassic Inspector about Bucky, who won’t be sent back to his first owner. Liam spent several hours on the phone with them going through the requirements necessary to house him. They still won’t be able to send a representative up for a proper inspection for a few months, giving Niall plenty of time to work on training.

He’s been reading up on them as much as he can, not just Pteranodons, but dinosaurs in general. He can find plenty of information about their biology, but it’s harder to find anything really definitive regarding their behaviour.

It’s tricky, because the dinosaurs that exist again today have been genetically engineered by humans, for humans. It’s not like there are flocks of wild dinosaurs out there to learn anything from. Niall figures he’ll have to operate on a more case-by-case basis with Bucky. Some of the things he’s read don’t seem to match up with him very well. He wasn’t at all averse to being touched, and he seems like he’d be very easily bribed with food.

Niall takes note of several common factors that reappear throughout the various articles he finds, but mostly winds up with a lot of questions to be answered. There’s not a lot written about dinosaurs that focuses on the kind of things he’s interested in, so he sifts through information on training for a variety of different animals.

It’s only slightly comforting to learn Pteranodons have no teeth. Niall’s quite sure they’re plenty capable of doing damage without them. Still, he made a promise and he intends to see it through.

Harry greets him early on Saturday morning in a yellow bathrobe peppered with neon flamingos sipping margaritas. He grins and tugs Niall in for hug.

“Hey, you! Glad you could make it.” He pulls out a mug of tea from behind his back. “Three lumps, right?”

“Yeah, thanks Harry.” Niall takes a sip. It’s the perfect temperature; just a few degrees shy of scalding, where it’s just hot enough to warm you up all the way down.

“So, you excited about today?”

Niall tugs at his earlobe. “Um, somewhat I guess? Bit nervous too, though.”

“Makes sense.” Harry’s tugging Niall down the hallway, towards the door that leads to the basement. “Think I’d be worried if you weren’t feeling at least a little apprehensive.”

Bucky’s head swivels around to look at Niall when he steps through the door. The dino has to tilt his head a little to get a good look at him. Then he makes a sort of clucking sound, a bit like a chicken, and hop-trots across the room to greet Niall.

“Woah, bro.” Niall holds up his hands and Bucky stops a couple feet away.

The others are already downstairs, sans Louis who has no desire to spend any time around the dino if he can help it.

“In his defense, he is working today,” Harry offers with a shrug.

It’s fine by Niall. He wasn’t sure how he’d feel about having an audience, but it’s surprisingly unintimidating with them there. Niall does the baby wave at the other two, and Zayn immediately bursts out laughing. It’s a lovely sound, which Niall should probably not think about right now or at all, really. Zayn may be cute, but he’s not a stranger, and Niall needs to keep that in mind.

He takes out the notes and sifts through them for the thirteenth time that morning. Bucky leans over his shoulder and makes a gobbling noise, but Niall doesn’t have any fish on him right now and elects to ignore him. This proves to be a mistake when Bucky reaches down and snatches the paper out of his hands.

“Oi, that’s mine!” Bucky dances a few feet away, waving the notes around in the tip of his beak like he’s taunting Niall. He rolls up his sleeves.

Niall didn’t expect him to move around very well on the ground, but every time he gets close enough to grab the notes, Bucky flaps his wings and lands further away. The third time he tries this, Niall rises with him and, in what is probably a very stupid move, lands between his wings.

Bucky swings his head back to stare at Niall in surprise, and they jerk higher until they’re close to touching the ceiling. Niall catches hold of Bucky’s crest and tugs him to the side like he did before to steer him.

He goes into a roll. They don’t hit the ceiling, but Niall loses his balance and falls. Taken off guard, he only needs a few more seconds to gain his bearings and start floating. But before he has a chance, there’s an alarmed screech from above him and suddenly something’s wrapping around Niall’s torso and jerking him back up.

Niall gasps, looking down to see Bucky’s talons wrapped around his chest. He’s got claws, but there’s hardly so much as a rip in Niall’s shirt when Bucky sets him down on the floor and hops around him, chattering nervously.

“There, there.” Niall reaches out tentatively to stroke him and Bucky shuffles closer. “Uh, good boy.”

The notes are gone, and Niall figures he must have swallowed them in all the excitement. It doesn’t really matter though, he’s pretty much got them memorized.

“Are you alright?” Liam calls out. Niall startles. He almost forgot they were there.

“I’m fine! Just, um, a little surprised.” The others are all on their feet, and Niall doesn’t doubt that they would have somehow kept him safe if something had happened.

“Show him,” Harry suggests. “Show him what you can do.”

Bucky doesn’t notice when Niall’s hovering a few inches off the ground, but when he’s too high to keep petting him, his eyes go wide. He snaps his beak at Niall’s feet, like he’s trying to pull him back down to the ground, and Niall goes higher. He stops a few feet out of Bucky’s reach and spins in the air so he can face him.

“It’s fine, see? I do what you do. Well, sorta...” Bucky swipes his beak through the air beneath Niall, almost like he might be checking for strings? He’s quite clever, for a giant lizard.

Niall can see the instant he figures it out - his eyes widen, lower beak drops, and he staggers back a few feet, claws scraping along the floor. Then his head swings back to look at the others, and Niall suddenly realizes this could go very badly if they aren’t careful.

“Show him that you can’t fly!” Niall calls out. They all start hopping up into the air, but of course no one gets more than a couple feet above the ground for a moment or two. Eventually, Bucky seems to understand that only Niall can save himself if he falls.

After that, they work on some basic commands, and by the time Niall leaves later that night after the others insist he stays for supper, Bucky knows how to sit, stay, come, and respond to his own name. It may be a little too hastily optimistic, but they also get him measured for a saddle and harness.

“And we’ll all help make it,” Harry says, brandishing his glass of OJ with a flourish as though it were fine wine. “I don’t care who did best in their textiles class-”

“Cos we all know it was you,” Zayn mutters.

“-it’ll go so much faster as a group. Plus, I’ve been told I make a great instructor.” He passes a napkin to Louis, who belches appreciatively.

There’s a bump against Niall’s toes from under the table and he looks up to find Liam smiling at him. It feels kind of like he’s checking up on him, and Niall winks to let him know all is well. Liam tries to wink back, but it’s a bit unsuccessful. Niall offers a thumbs up and Liam tries a couple more times, but by then the others have picked up on their non-conversation, and suddenly everyone’s making exaggerated winking faces.

Louis’ face is particularly expressive, and Niall makes the mistake of trying to maintain eye contact with him. He bursts out laughing and almost chokes on his food. Zayn pats him lightly on the back, even though he’s not really choking. Harry wordlessly hands him a napkin, frowning so Niall knows he’s quite unimpressed by his table manners.

 *

Niall wakes up bright and early on his next day off. He starts to make an omelette for breakfast, and it smells so good it’s almost a shame there’s no one else there to share it with.

Niall hums, pulling out his phone and messaging the group chat.

_Brunch at mine ?_

Liam instantly responds with several exclamation marks, and after a couple minutes Harry chimes in asking if they need to bring anything.

 _i’ve got a new cartoon of eggs, some veggies and half a loaf of bread_ , Niall texts back. _Anything else u want, feel free !_

The intercom buzzes 45 minutes later.

“C’mon in!” Niall waves them all inside. “Make yourselves at home.”

“Sorry it took us so long.” Louis breezes through the door ahead of everyone. “We had to wait for Zayn to get ready.”

“Go eat a shoe,” Zayn grumbles, a few steps behind. His face immediately brightens when he sees Niall’s, and there’s a slight flicker of guilt in Niall’s gut. He hopes Zayn doesn’t feel like he has to act cheery around Niall if he’s not really feeling it. Just because Niall’s new, he wouldn’t mind dealing with a bit of cranky Zayn if it meant he was relaxed enough around him to show it.

Zayn’s bundled up in a hoodie and sweats and looks artfully sleepy soft, like someone who woke up in a commercial without a trace of bedhead.

“Sorry.” Zayn tries to cover a yawn behind his sleeve. “I was out half the night on hero duty and just got back a few hours ago.”

“Yuck, sounds like rough stuff, bud.” Niall opens his arms for a hug, and Zayn immediately sinks into them. “I wouldn’t have been offended if you wanted to sleep in, y’know.”

“Mm, but you’re warm and toasty,” Zayn hums, tucking his face into Niall’s shoulder. “Smell like toast, too.”

Niall giggles and tries not to shiver at the ticklish sensation of Zayn’s hair brushing against his neck. “I have some in the kitchen if you want?”

“That sounds nice,” Zayn says, but makes no effort to move away from Niall.

“If you insist on being a koala, you’re gonna have to help me with the cooking.” Niall doesn’t actually mind, but he doesn’t quite trust Louis to be unsupervised in his kitchen for long.

“Was gonna do that anyways,” Zayn mumbles and moves to pull Niall towards the kitchen.

“C’mon Zayn, we have to share the Niall hugs,” Liam cuts in, already ahead of them and shooing Louis away from where he had his nose in the fridge. “It’s only fair.”

“Yeah!” Harry agrees. “Or else I’ll have to-” He cuts himself off and suddenly drops behind the counter.

Niall’s about to ask if he’s okay when a lion pokes his head around the corner and pads over to them. He rears up on his hind legs and pulls the other two against Niall and Zayn in a group hug. Louis grumbles something under his breath about being squashed to death, but it’s all for show.

For all of Harry’s clumsiness, Niall’s noticed that he’s remarkably aware of his own strength, even in this form, and the massive paw that eclipses the back of Niall’s head is gentler than his favourite pillow. Niall didn’t even know lions could purr, but Harry sounds like a finicky old motor starting up until it feels as though it fills up the entire room.

Niall can’t help the smile that feels like it’s going to pull his cheeks apart. He never would’ve imagined this could be his normal a couple months ago. Several tummies grumble then, and they break apart to make food.

“Damn, you didn’t have to bring the whole pantry with you,” Niall jokes as they unload several bags of food.

“Well, we eat a lot and we didn’t want to put you out, so.”

“Did you bring any bacon?”

Liam shakes his head. “Nah. Zayn doesn’t do pork, so we don’t really buy it much anymore.”

“We do have turkey bacon though.” Harry pulls out a packet and waves it at Niall. That sounds a bit questionable, but Niall agrees to try it anyway.

“Why, hello there honey-Bea!” Louis coos, lifting Bea up off the floor where she was sniffling around. He’s got a mealworm in his fingers now, and Beatrice snatches it up, munching in the strangely endearing exaggerated fashion that hedgehogs do. She licks her face when it’s all gone and starts nosing around Louis’ hands in search of more treats.

“I think she likes me best,” Louis decides.

She likes anyone that feeds her, but Niall doesn’t say so. Louis may have a point anyways, since he is rather like a hedgehog himself - a prickly little thing at first glance, but once you get to know him, you can see how soft he is too.

Niall remembers too late that, in lieu of more treats, Beatrice likes to go on expeditions up people’s shirt sleeves. Which is rarely a good thing, but Niall’s already learned that Louis is notoriously ticklish.

“Niall. Hedgehog. Arm. Help!” Louis gasps between pained fits of giggles.

It’s Zayn that comes to his rescue, fishing Bea out in a matter of seconds.

“Phew, that was quick.” Louis leans against the wall as though completely drained.

Zayn shrugs and cuddles Beatrice to his chest. “I’ve had practise.” At Niall’s okay, he slips Bea into his hoodie pocket to nap.

Everyone chatters around the kitchen as they cook, and Niall is pleased that the conversation doesn’t diminish for even a second when he floats up to grab something from a high cupboard. It’s all feels so normal, and Niall likes watching them settling into his space.

Harry takes over the frying pan to make french toast. “I used to be a baker, y’know.”

Niall does know, because Harry’s mentioned it before. Several times, in fact. Niall isn’t sure why that would make Harry an expert on french toast, but he knows better than to ask those sorts of things by now.

Louis takes charge of the tea kettle. He makes tea to everyone’s preference, even though he thinks the way some of them like it is a bit rubbish, and complains about it the whole time. Zayn grabs the other frying pan to make eggs and hashbrowns. Niall was pretty much raised on Bobby’s hashbrowns, so he has high expectations for fried potatoes. Zayn’s smell incredible, and they taste even better, though unlike anything Niall’s had before.

Liam cleans up everyone’s messes as they go. It’s so efficient that by the time they’re ready to eat, there’s only a small stack of dishes left to do. Niall goes around in between, lending a hand wherever it’s needed and setting the table.

It’s the first of many cozy afternoons spent together.

 *

Niall’s never met a group of people who so closely resemble a tightly knit sweater. They’re an interesting mix, all with their own distinct patterns that at first glance wouldn’t obviously belong together, yet they do fit so seamlessly with each other. Something about seeing them together makes Niall feel warm and cozy, the way he would in the center of a real sweater.

And it’s more than just being on a team together, Niall thinks. It runs deeper than that.

It’s clear to anyone watching them (which Niall frequently catches himself doing) that there’s years of trust, intimacy, and admiration, and all sorts of constant, casual affections woven between them.

They’re all so casually in tune with one another about such simple things, things that probably aren’t all that necessary to being heroes. Each of them could quite easily finish each other's sentences, but they usually just like listening. They know everyone’s favourite things, and their least favourites too, because those are just as important to be aware of.

They’re all so close, it’s surprising they’ve never made Niall feel like an outsider whenever he’s around them.

It crossed his mind once that they had only felt obligated to include him as much as they did because Niall found out about what they did. It bothered him that perhaps he had unwittingly forced them to reveal themselves after the whole thing with Bucky.

He says as much to Liam when he drives Niall back home after one of Bucky’s training sessions, which have been going much more smoothly since the first one. They even convinced Louis to join them this time, though he spent most of it alternating between using Liam and Zayn as human shields.

Bucky seemed to find it amusing and kept trying to sneak around behind him as though they were playing a game. Louis didn’t seem to find it amusing at all.

Liam gives Niall an odd look when he brings it up, like he’s slowly puzzling through Niall’s thought process. He actually turns off the car, so Niall knows he’s got Liam’s undivided attention.

“I mean, we could’ve easily brought you back to your place and let you wake up none the wiser? Or brought you to the hospital if we were that worried about leaving you alone. Louis actually suggested we abandon you up there the way you abandoned him in the water.” Liam coughs. “I’m pretty sure he was joking, though.

“Anyways, Harry recognized you right away and told us he got ‘nothing but the bestest of vibes’ from you, and then after we’d talked a bit, we all just made the unanimous decision to let you in on it. On us,” Liam amends.

He settles a hand over Niall’s, and he leans over across the seats to hug him. It should be a little awkward with the seatbelts cutting between them, but it doesn’t feel that way. Not with Liam.

“Thank you.” Niall doesn’t have the words to fully express how grateful he is to have become part of their lives, but he hopes Liam can read between the lines anyway. “I’m glad you did.”

“I’m glad we did too.” Niall can feel Liam’s smile against his neck, and he hugs him tighter.

 *

Niall doesn’t see the text until he gets home late after working a double shift.

He changes into his comfiest sweater and flops face first onto the bed. Every time he finishes a double, Niall swears it’ll be the last.

Beatrice crunches on her dinner in the corner, and he rolls over to watch her. Hedgehogs exaggerate each bite with their entire face, and Niall finds it endlessly amusing.

Niall decides to order Chinese for his own dinner, but when he turns on the phone, Louis’ message pops up and eating is suddenly the furthest thing from his thoughts.

_Hey, Zayn got hurt on a mission and had to go home, u feel like babysitting? it’s not serious or anything, but the rest of us won’t make it back till tmrw, and im sure he’ll be happy to see u anyways ;)_

Niall doesn’t absorb anything beyond _Zayn_ and _hurt_ , before he’s hoisting Beatrice up into his pocket, shoving open the bedroom window and clambering out into the night.

The flight is a bit of a blur, every heartbeat feels like one moment too far away. But then the Burrow is rising into view, and it’s all Niall can do to keep from crashing into Zayn’s window.

He knocks frantically. A few seconds pass, and Niall’s about to fly down and try the actual door, but then the curtains are pulled back and there’s Zayn. He looks surprised to see Niall, but then he smiles and unlatches the window. Niall barrells in and wraps him in a hug, careful not to squish Bea.

“Thank god, I was so worried.” He pulls back and clutches Zayn by the shoulders before he has a chance to reply. At least he doesn’t look close to falling over any second. “Are you okay? What happened? Were you attacked? Are the others okay?”

“Um, what?” Zayn catches hold of Niall’s wrists and pulls them together in front of him. “Shh dove, everything’s fine. What are you talking about?”

“I, uh.” Niall pauses to catch his breath. “Louis said you got hurt?”

“Well, I did, yes.” Zayn glances down to his feet. There’s a bandage poking out from the top of one sock. “It’s just a minor sprain, though. Nothing life threatening or anything. I wouldn’t even be back here except I shouldn’t be walking and the job involved lots of running.”

“Oh. And the others, are they safe? Were you being attacked?”

“Everyone’s fine, I just, um.” Zayn pulls away from Niall and rubs the back of his neck. “I tripped on the edge of a sidewalk, is all.”

“Ah.” The worry and adrenaline drains out of Niall all at once, and he flops down onto the window sill. “Y’know, that seems more like something Harry would do.”

Zayn scowls. “Yeah, that’s what he said too. Anyways, I’m sorry you came all this way just over that. I hope you weren’t worried too much?”

“Dunno what gave you that impression.” Niall chuckles nervously. Now it’s his turn to feel embarrassed. “Probably should’ve taken a second glance at Lou’s text before jumping out the window.”

Jumping to conclusions like that is really quite unlike Niall. Usually.

“Right, well! Sorry for bursting in like that. Good to see you’re ok though, so I can just-” He bumps his head into the wall as he stands up. _Smooth as always, Horan_.

“Hey, no.” Zayn reaches out to Niall again, and he moves towards him before Zayn has a chance to pull him in. “You don’t have to go. It’s late.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Besides, I was just about to settle into a _Tremors_ marathon. Could probs use some help with that.”

Niall chuckles. “I brought Beatrice with me, by the way. Hope that’s fine.” He pulls her out of his pocket, and Beatrice perks up at her new surroundings. Niall’s brought her over a couple times before, but not to Zayn’s room.

“Course it’s fine.” Niall plunks Bea into Zayn’s hands before he asks for her. Zayn grins and turns to shuffle back to the bed.

“Oh here, lemme help you with that.” Niall slides under Zayn’s arm and wraps an arm around his waist to take the weight off his foot. “Really shouldn’t be doing much walking for the next little while. Trust me, I’ve probably got the dodgiest knees in town.”

It’s easier then, switching into nurse mode without even thinking about it. Niall’s always felt exceptionally at ease when he’s doing something worthwhile. Zayn doesn’t fuss at the attention, just smiles gratefully when Niall eases him onto the bed and sets about elevating the injured foot with a couple pillows.

“Anything else before we start?” Niall’s stomach rumbles then, answering his own question. “Sorry, I was actually about to order Chinese before I came over here. Think I could pinch something from the kitchen?”

“Oh, sure. There’s a bit of meatloaf and roasted veg maybe… I think we’re pretty low on snacks, but there should be some hot chocolate if you want?”

“Sounds good! You want anything?” Zayn shakes his head. Niall’s about to split, except Zayn starts shifting towards the edge of the bed.

“What part of not-walking don’t you understand, silly billy?”

Zayn frowns, looking truly petulant for the first time since Niall set foot in the room. “But I wanna come with you.” He sets Beatrice down next to him on the bed.

Niall bites his lip. “Okay, um. We could piggyback, if you want? I haven’t tried it in the air for a while now, but-” Zayn makes grabby fingers, and that settles it.

Zayn’s not very heavy, but Niall still feels quite pleased with himself for getting all the way down the stairs without incident. He tries not to hover too high, remembers Zayn mentioning not being a fan of heights and worries he might feel the same way about flying with Niall.

On the contrary, Zayn’s nothing but smiles when Niall settles him into a chair in the kitchen.

“That was brill!” Zayn says, grinning wide at Niall as though flying is akin to solving one of life’s great questions.

“Yeah, well.” Niall shrugs, trying not to flush at the praise. “Been doing it since I was a tot.”

Zayn whistles. “That long? You’re lucky. It’s not- if it shows up when you’re older, it’s generally a lot trickier to get used to.”

“Yeah?” Niall has heard that, especially if you’re already going through changes with puberty.

“Yeah…” Zayn shifts to point out a cupboard. “So, hot chocolate’s in there.”

Niall busies himself heating up milk over the stove, and microwaving the leftovers. He floats up to reach into the cupboard of mugs, pausing when Zayn asks him to think carefully before choosing one for himself. He picks the one he’d already started reaching for - a rotund one with bunches of forget-me-nots beneath the rim.

Zayn nods in approval. “That’s a good one.”

Niall chuckles. “Was that a test?”

“Kinda. Think it was Harry who came up with the idea. He says you can tell a lot about someone by which one they pick.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“You see the brownish one with the leaf on it?” Niall nods. Most of the cups have floral designs, and that one stands out, even tucked into the back as it is. “We call that the fragile masculinity cup. If a guy goes out of his way to get that one, he’s probably not gonna be the best mate to have around.”

 *

“Hey Zee?”

“Hm?” Zayn’s got a cocoa mustache going on, and Niall’s fingers twitch with an urge to brush it off.

“Can I ask what your ability is?” Zayn blinks and reaches out to pause the movie. “I just realized it hasn’t come up before,” Niall carries on quickly, dragging his fingernails through Beatrice’s quills again as she snoozes snuggled up between them. “And, well. I wanted to know about you too.”

Zayn nods. “Yeah, ‘course you can.” He sets down the mug of cocoa on the bedside table and hums thoughtfully for a moment. “Pass me your phone?”

Niall does, and the screen lights up when it rests in Zayn’s hand. His skin starts to shimmer, and tiny bolts of bright blue rise up, dancing over Zayn’s fingers only to disappear into the phone. A few moments pass, and then it’s over, the blue sparks gone before Niall’s had a chance to ask if he can touch them.

“There,” Zayn passes the phone back. “It’s fully charged now. Should last a bit longer too.”

Niall’s fingers fumble over his cell, and there’s the tiniest spark, like static charge, when his fingers brush with Zayn’s.

“Now, that was brill!” Zayn ducks his head, but Niall can still catch the darkening of his cheeks. “No, seriously. You’re a right legend, you are.”

“Stop it,” Zayn says, but he’s looking directly at Niall now, a soft smile playing at the corners of his lips. “You are too.” 

*

“Rise and shine, you lazy lummoxes!”

Even if Niall was awake and fully alert, he probably wouldn’t have been able to do anything to prevent Louis from leaping onto the bed with them. He worries about Beatrice for half a second, before remembering they made a tiny pillow fort for her in Zayn’s closet before they fell asleep.

Zayn swears and tries to tighten his grip on the blankets, but Louis yanks them off easily and wiggles his way in between the two of them.

“Morning, Grumpy!” He gets an arm around Zayn and the pillow he’s trying to hide under and tries to pull him closer.

“Fuck off,” Zayn hisses and doesn’t budge, boasting a rather impressive deadweight.

Louis shrugs and turns his attention to Niall, who allows himself to be tugged over till he’s snug against Louis’ side. He’s kind of smelly, but there’s something almost nice about that, the familiarity of Louis. That Niall knows and likes him well enough not to mind how smelly he is.

“And you,” Louis hums. He threads his fingers through the tangled mess at the back of Niall’s head. That’s nice too. “Who might you be? Sleepy?”

Niall yawns. “Not anymore.”

“No, I think you’d be Happy,” Louis says decidedly.

Niall grins into his shoulder, and everything feels soft and peaceful for a moment. Then Louis pushes his way out of the covers and smacks a kiss to both of their foreheads.

“We picked up Mickey-D’s for breakfast, hurry up!”

He tosses the blankets to the other side of the room before he leaves. Zayn scowls, instinctively moving towards Niall as the only heat source left in the bed. Niall giggles and holds out his arms. Zayn rolls into them. “Honestly,” Zayn grumbles. “Can trust that guy with my life. Dignity though? Not so much.”

Niall snorts and tries not to wince. One of his hands is pinned uncomfortably beneath Zayn’s shoulder blades, but it’s not bad enough that Niall wants to point it out.

Zayn seems to notice anyways, because after a few moments he sits upright. Coral strands fall over his face, hiding his eyes from Niall’s. “Suppose we should get going now.”

Niall nods, stretches his elbows up behind his head, and curls and uncurls his toes. “I’ll carry you again, yeah?”

Zayn turns to look at Niall, and maybe it’s just because he’s still only two-thirds awake again, but his gaze is unbearably soft.

 _I love you_ , Niall thinks, the feeling curling gently around him like a blanket. And then, _oh dear_.

 *

They’ve barely sat down to breakfast before the others are called out on a mission. Everyone bustles around Niall in relatively organized chaos; Harry and Liam throwing together protein shakes to go, Zayn disappearing again to get dressed because apparently this mission won’t require much running, and Louis little more than a blur around them.

Then they’re dropping Niall with hurried hugs and apologies until they’re gone.

Niall finishes his breakfast biscuit in silence. He decides to start up a chili in the slow cooker for supper. Hopefully they’ll be back by tonight. It feels weird, seeing the kitchen without the others in it. Feels empty, even though there’s Niall.

After tidying up the kitchen, Niall takes Bucky out for a flight. He acts like an enthusiastic puppy when Niall picks up the harness, bouncing in circles around Niall and letting out an ongoing stream of high pitched whining. It’s lucky he doesn’t have a tail to wag, or Niall would be knocked to the floor.

It’s all he can do to calm him down enough to get it on. He knows how to sit now, but sometimes when he’s this excited he forgets how to stay still. Finally, the last buckle clicks into place and they’re ready to go.

They spend most of the afternoon flying along the river, swooping low over the surface of the water until it sprays against Bucky’s wingtips. They practise barrel rolls a few times until Niall starts feeling dizzy.

He’s been using some of the same technique’s Zayn taught him about riding the motorbike, to tilt his body into the direction he wants. Niall calls out commands as he changes directions too, but he’s not sure if Bucky really needs them, he reacts so quickly.

Bucky’s been picking up on commands surprisingly fast, although Niall has no point of reference for training dinosaurs, so he can’t really say for certain. They’re still working on ‘drop it,’ which everyone agrees is _extremely_ important.

They’ve trained him to find things, he recognizes all five of them by name now, as well as several household objects. But chances are when things go missing, Bucky’s usually the culprit. He’s got a special fondness for collecting shiny things, and more than once, a set of keys have wound up tucked into a corner of the nest they’ve helped him build in one of the spare rooms. At least he doesn’t eat them.

The flight goes on for hours until they’re both tuckered out. When they get back to the house, Bucky decides to take a nap in Louis’ bed.

He shoves the door open with his forehead as Niall’s walking him down the hall. Before he can stop him, he’s waddled his way into the room and hopped up on the bed, tucking his wings around himself like a great, big burrito.

His eyes are already closed by the time Niall catches up to him, and he just sighs. He really doesn’t feel like trying to move him, and he did have a bath recently. Louis will just have to deal.

Niall snaps a picture and sends it to the group chat, not that he expects a response for a while. He hopes the boys are alright, whatever they’re doing. They hadn’t looked worried when they left, but Niall wouldn’t be surprised if they’d hide it for his benefit. He does hope they would’ve asked if they really needed his expertise. Niall wouldn’t mind, and the Bucky incident did turn out quite well overall.

Unless you asked Louis, of course. He’s never retained much fondness for the dino after the fiasco of their first flight together, but for whatever reason Bucky seems to gravitate towards him quite a lot, almost as though he’s teasing him.

“It’s a bit like cats,” Harry’d said, after the third time Bucky snuck into Louis’ room and nicked one of his shoes, this time hiding it on one of the ceiling fan blades. (Louis got him back the next day by swiping his favourite pebble.) “They always seem to pick up when someone in the room doesn’t like them, but instead of being offended, they go straight to them.”

They’ve got a date planned for the Jurassic Inspector’s visit now, and Niall tries not to be nervous about it. He hadn’t anticipated growing close to Bucky, but if things don’t work out with the inspection, he thinks he’d miss him almost as much as he would Beatrice.

Reminded of Bea, Niall heads back to Zayn’s room to check on her and clean up any mess she might’ve made during the night. She’s curled up in a ball, shifting slightly with her little hedgehog snores. She hisses a little when he gets closer, then unrolls fully to greet Niall and the treats in his pocket. He holds out a finger to scratch under her chin.

”You like it here, don’t you?”

Beatrice licks her nose.

Niall tucks her up against his breastbone. “Yeah, me too.”

 *

Evening finds Niall sitting on the roof waiting for sunset. Or the others’ return, whichever comes sooner. Liam called and said to start dinner without them, so Niall brought a steaming bowl of chili up to the roof to eat. Beatrice is snoozing in his pocket again. He considered bringing Bucky up to sit with them too, but he’ll probably get upset if he realizes Bea is there too.

For whatever reason, Bucky is terrified of her.

The first time Niall brought Bea over, Bucky was lounging around in the living room. If there’s a thunderstorm outside and it’s too dangerous to go out flying, they play hide and seek in the house. The hallways are wide enough for Bucky to move around, even if flying’s out of the question in every room except the basement. He still gets exercise shuffling around on all fours, can even get into an awkward gallop if he wants to.

He perked up as soon as Niall came in, unfolding his wings to bounce over and say hello. He made it halfway across the room before he noticed Beatrice and nearly tore up the carpet in his haste to stop. Bea hissed and prickled up a little, and Bucky shot out of the room faster than Niall figured he was capable of.

They found him later, wedged under Louis’ bed. Louis grumbled something about keeping Beatrice in his room to scare him off, but he never has.

There’s a bit of a breeze in the air now, but Niall can’t feel the cold. Chilly weather’s always good for eating chili.

He hopes the others are doing alright. Liam sounded a little out of breath when he called, but then Niall can get winded doing the most mundane things, so that’s not necessarily something to worry about.

They’ve never asked Niall to help them out on a mission since Bucky, and Niall’s been too protective of their newfound friendship to risk asking. Now though, he finds himself thinking about it more and more.

Even though they spend most of their down time with Niall already, he wonders what it would be like to actually work with them, work with Zayn. His heart flutters a little with that thought, and he sighs.

Niall’s feelings haven’t done much to settle down now that Niall’s met and befriended Zayn. If anything, they may have gotten worse. It was different when Niall didn’t really know Zayn as a person; he had little more to go on than his looks.

But there’s infinitely more beautiful things about Zayn than just his face. He’s so endlessly thoughtful and kind, with a love for all living things that extends from giant prehistoric reptiles down to the creepiest of crawlies.

It’s so lovely, the way Zayn listens to people, so attentive to their feelings even when they aren’t saying anything out loud.

Once, when Niall was younger, he was strolling through the woods near his home when he happened upon a doe grazing alongside the river. Her head bobbed up to look at Niall, calmly appraising him for a moment before turning back to the grass. She seemed so incredibly at ease with his appearance, and Niall tried not to do anything to startle her and ruin the moment. His left foot was asleep by the time Bobby came through the woods calling after Niall for lunch, and the spell was broken. The deer was gone before Bobby pushed through the trees.

Niall shrugged when asked what he’d been doing there. He wasn’t certain he could convey what it had felt like, and he hadn’t wanted to ruin the feeling by trying.

There had been something almost magical about it, having such a gentle, skittish creature so unbothered by Niall’s presence. Having Zayn’s attention feels a bit like that, though Zayn isn’t all that shy around Niall anymore.

There’s something beautiful too, in the near effortless command Zayn has of his powers. It would be impressive even if Niall didn’t fancy Zayn, yet Zayn’s still so quiet and humble about it.

“Urgh.” Niall plunks his face into his knees. Yeah, he’s got it bad. Anyone who talks about love like it’s the greatest thing in the world is a huge jackass, because it feels like Niall’s feelings are going to drown him.

It’s not something Niall knows how to bring up casually. And even if he did, Zayn might not feel the same way. Which would be fine, Niall’s long ago accepted that it’s not possible for everybody to like anybody else in the same way.

But what if it made Zayn feel really uncomfortable? What if he didn’t want to hang out with Niall anymore? And while Niall’s pretty sure none of the others would blame him for feeling the way he did, Zayn was their friend first. If it was super awkward, they’d probably stop inviting Niall over so much. He can’t even say he’d even blame them either, if it came to that.

But it’s not going to, because Niall’s not going to tell Zayn until he’s sure that it’d be a good idea, which could very well be never. No, it’s just a crush. A very big, overwhelming crush, but nothing worth risking his friendships for.

Niall’s gently whisked away from his thoughts by a warm presence brushing against his elbow. He smiles down at the creamy orange Persian. “Hey, Haz.”

Harry chirps a meow in greeting and nestles down next to Niall. His tail looks and feels like a feather duster as it flicks against him. He reaches out and starts scratching Harry’s scalp. A loud rumbling starts up in Harry’s chest, filling the silence between them while the horizon slowly lightens to a peachy gold.

“Purring’s sick,” Niall remarks after a while. “Like, there really is no better way to say that you’re feeling good. ‘This is nice’ or really, like, _anything_ you can express with words just doesn’t quite cut it, y’know?” Niall realizes he’s starting to ramble and slows down to take a breath. “Must be nice, being able to purr instead of having to figure out what the heck to say all the time.”

There’s barely a rustle before Harry’s changed back, his head of long curls pillowed over Niall’s thigh. Niall freezes, fingers still tangled in Harry’s hair.

“Um, was- is it weird that I’m petting you? Sorry, I probably should’ve asked first.”

“Nah, you’re good.” Harry shuffles so his head’s resting more evenly against Niall. “I mean, I suppose to some people it might be weird. But I _love_ when people play with my hair, so.” He clears his throat when Niall doesn’t do anything. “That was a hint to keep going, by the way.” He digs his chin into Niall’s leg for a second.

“Oi! You’re such a baby, Haz,” Niall teases, but continues moving his fingers through Harry’s hair. Harry hums as though he agrees with Niall’s assessment of his character, but couldn’t care less. His eyes close and he looks near sleep.

“Something the matter with you, dear?” Harry asks, without opening his eyes. Niall carefully suppresses a wince. He was hoping Harry wouldn’t pick up on any of that.

“I was only, uh…” Niall trails off. He considers telling him, for a moment. “Nah, nothing’s wrong. Was just thinking.”

“Yeah?” Harry blinks up at him. “About what?”

“I dunno.” Niall shrugs and casually avoids looking directly in his eyes. “Nothing, everything, and whatnot.”

Harry closes his eyes again and sighs softly. “Alright.” He probably knows something more is going on, but seems content to let it drop, at least for now.

It would probably be a relief, Niall knows, to tell someone (who isn’t Beatrice). And it’s not as though he thinks Harry would really mind. He certainly wouldn’t be jealous. Except then he’d have to keep it secret from everyone else, and Niall doesn’t want to put him in that position, not with his teammates, his friends. Not over something as insignificant as a crush.

“It’s a good spot for thinking, up here,” Harry mumbles. His words are a bit garbled, spoken mostly into the fabric of Niall’s jeans, and it takes him a second to catch on to what he’s saying.

“Yeah,” Niall agrees. “It is. Easy to get carried away with your thoughts, I reckon.”

They’re high enough on the hillside to get a clear view of most of the city, even without binoculars. But the dense trees around the property certainly makes it difficult for anyone else below to get a good look back at them.

Harry yawns suddenly, and his whole face stretches with it.

“Busy day at the office?”

Harry groans. “Ugh, yeah. Feels like I haven’t stopped running since I left this morning.” He must be tired to have dropped the topic of whatever’s bothering Niall so easily. If he doesn’t get a straightforward answer with those sorts of things right away, Harry usually takes the time to figure out an alternate route, a gentle way to tug out whatever’s troubling his friends.

Niall’s fingernails catch on a hardened glob of mud in Harry’s hair and he pulls it. Bending down to get a better look in the dimming light, he starts combing through curls to find more debris.

“Feels like I’m being groomed by a gorilla,” Harry mumbles. Niall snorts. “Anything you find in there, you’re welcome to keep.”

“Thanks, but no thanks. While I appreciate your extremely generous offer, I’m actually still full of chili.”

“Oh! That reminds me.” Harry tries to push himself up, but he’s stiff from laying in the same position for so long and flops back into Niall. “We brought back ice cream. Did you wanna come down and watch a movie with us while we eat? The other kidlets were lining up to shower, but they should all be done by now.”

“Yeah, that sounds nice.” Niall runs his fingers through Harry’s hair once more, then gives his shoulders a gentle shove. “Reckon you have to get off me first, though.”

Harry sighs heavily as he rolls over. “God, you’re demanding.” He stretches out across the ground, arching his spine as he slowly stands, which all looks very feline-esque, Niall thinks. It’s interesting, the ways Harry doesn’t seem to change from form to form, how he always retains little parts of himself no matter what he looks like.

“Is it hard, going back and forth?” he blurts out.

Harry doesn’t answer right away, and Niall tilts his head to catch a glimpse of his face, tries to gauge whether or not he’s offended. He’s paused mid-stretch, with one elbow pulled across his chin so Niall can’t quite make out the expression on his face.

“Sorry, um.” Niall gets to his feet and wipes the dust off his legs. “You don’t have to say anything about it, if you don’t want to, that is, I-”

Harry waves off the concern. “Oh no, I don’t mind. Just caught me off guard is all. We’re all so used to each other here, we never really talk about it as something new anymore.” He purses his lips, frowning thoughtfully.

“I guess it was kind of tricky getting used to at first. I mean, it’s always like that for Powered kids, isn’t it? But for me, I had a bit of a hard time figuring out if like... If I’m me right now, does that make me _less me_ when I’ve got whiskers? I always thought I _felt_ like myself no matter what I looked like, but it bothered me thinking how like, other people wouldn’t always see me the same way, y’know? Like even if they knew it was me as a cat, would they think of me as if I were someone else? Sometimes people would act completely different around me-with-whiskers, and it made me feel so weird, because I’m still me, y’know? I still think the same things and all that.”

“The petting thing just now...” Niall realizes. “Harry, I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be! I meant it when I said I like people playing with my hair. And you’re my friend Ni, and I know you weren’t, like-” He waves his hands around nonsensically. “You don’t talk to me any differently and that’s the thing I really notice, when people do that.” He smiles tightly, and Niall steps in, curling an arm around Harry’s waist. “I don’t even think about it much anymore really, going back and forth. The shifting itself doesn’t actually hurt or anything, feels a bit like I’m changing clothes, I’d say? Except in a bit of a deeper way, I think.”

“Yeah, that... sort of makes sense.” Niall doesn’t know, not exactly, but he thinks he understands what Harry’s getting at.

The wind picks up again, and Harry tucks an arm around Niall’s shoulders. “C’mon, let’s get down before they veto our movie picking decisions for taking too long.”

As they walk down the stairs, Niall tells Harry how he started floating as an infant and how much it freaked his parents out to put the baby down, look away for just a moment, and turn back around to find him missing. They’d search frantically for a few seconds, only for a giggle to alert them to Niall’s location on top of the fridge.

“I think my toddler-hood alone was responsible for 90% of the grey hairs on their heads,” Niall admits. Harry cackles so hard he chokes on his own spit.

Harry stops at Bucky’s door to drop off ‘a cool stick’ he found during the mission. Niall rolls his eyes, but then stops and squints at Harry’s fingers on the doorknob.

“Hey, what happened to your hand?”

Harry follows his line of sight to the band aids. “Oh, that. I fell off a building, is all.” He waves it off and starts down the hallway.

Niall gapes after him for a long moment before jogging to catch up. “You _what?!_ ”

“Not all the way! I caught myself on the ledge, but then I got a ton of splinters from climbing back up.”

He could’ve just led with that, but Harry isn’t often all that good at starting with the point when he’s explaining things.

Harry chuckles softly at the bottom of the staircase, almost to himself. “Suppose we could’ve brought Bucky along, he probably would’ve been handy with that sort of thing.”

 _Could’ve just brought me_ , Niall thinks, but they’ve almost reached the living room now, and he bites his tongue.

*

Niall barely even registers when the others finally decide on a show to watch. He knows Harry was probably joking, but Niall can’t stop ruminating over what he said. He’s considered it before, of course. In the beginning, when he first met them, it was little more than a passing fantasy. But the more he thinks about it, the more it feels like it could be.

He knows that he wants to continue being there with the rest of them. But now, Niall also wants to learn how to be a hero. He wants to go on missions, to fight by their side, and to make a difference for somebody else.

“So, I’ve been thinking,” Niall announces quietly during a commercial break, when they’ve been watching the movie for over an hour. Harry immediately reaches for the remote and hits mute. “I was wondering if it might be possible for me to maybe, like, join you?”

Liam’s eyebrows knit together, confused. “But you are a part of us already, Niall. We love you, you know that don’t you?”

“I, I do, yeah.” Niall fights not to cover his face. Bless Liam, the dear egg. “I meant like, officially. I want to be a Buster.”

“Oh!” That Liam understands perfectly, and he glances around at the others, like he’s having a silent conversation with everybody but Niall. “Right, well. In that case, I think you’d better join us for a team meeting in the morning.”

“The morning? Why not now?” Niall tries not to sound whiny, but if the answer is no, he’d rather hear it now and not have it dragged out, to hear everyone come up with a list of reasons to justify why it wouldn’t work out.

Niall thinks it would, though. He knows he doesn’t have the same training as they do, but he’s nothing if not an excellent student. He’s certain they’d all work well together, if the fast friendship they’ve struck up with him is anything to go by. He thinks he’d fit in with them perfectly as a teammate too.

“We’re not saying no,” Louis says as though reading his mind. “Just that we want to talk about it with a good night’s sleep under our belts. Today has been an awfully long week for us, you know.”

Next to him, Zayn squeezes his arm. “Why don’t you stay over here tonight, and we’ll figure it out first thing in the morning, yeah?”

Niall nods, yawning. “Yeah, okay.” As eager as he is to talk about this, he can feel the bone-deep strain of exhaustion urging him to close his eyes too. 

*

Liam gestures for Niall to take a seat opposite him at the end of the coffee table the next morning. The others are all piled up on the sofa. He’s glad they didn’t suggest starting off with breakfast, doesn’t think he’d be able to eat anything with this conversation looming ahead of him.

“So, Niall. You’d like to join the team?”

Niall nods. Liam starts shifting through the folder of papers in front of him. It feels like a more solemn affair than Niall thinks it has to be, but he knows it’s important and doesn’t blame Liam for taking it so seriously.

“Alright. The first thing I wanted to start of with is I, we, wanted to let you know that, hm.” Liam trails off. “We don’t want you to feel obligated in any way to do this. I know a lot of the media about us sort of makes it out that we owe the use of our strengths to the rest of society, almost like servitude? I think a lot of us have felt that way, I know I definitely did for a long time. I tried to have a go of it on my own, years ago in another city. It didn’t work out so well, because of a lot of different things. I came into it thinking like, I wouldn’t be happy if I wasn’t doing something like this with my life.

“And it has turned out to be a really good fit for me, now that I’m here. But you don’t even have to get into a job or a hobby or whatever just because it’s based around your power. It’s a part of you, but it doesn’t necessarily define you, yeah? You could be a singer, a teacher, a vacuum cleaner salesperson; whatever you wanted. It’s not wrong or immoral to make choices just for yourself.”

“Um.” Niall looks down at his hands. He feels very small all of a sudden. “Does this mean you don’t want me on the team?”

“What? Oh god, Niall, no. Of course we do!” Liam reaches across the table and touches his arm. “We, I just want to make sure you don’t feel like you’re rushing into this, like you don’t have to feel obligated to join us just cos you’re Powered too, does that make more sense?”

Harry jumps in to save him. “You’re our friend, and we love having you around in any capacity. You’re a great person to be around, and we’ll always like hanging out with you no matter what. And if you do feel like being with us on the team is what _you_ want, we’d be honoured to have you there too.”

“Well, I may not be as geeky about it as some of you, but I have thought about it before, and I’m definitely interested to join, if you’ll have me?” He slips it into a question without really meaning to.

“Duh,” Louis says, stretching forward across Zayn and Harry to swat Niall. “Of course we want you, ya dingus. We didn’t want you to feel pressured into it, or we would’ve asked you about it ages ago.”

“Yes, of course we do.” Liam grimaces apologetically. “I was going to lead with that, but I didn’t want it to sound like ‘we want you, but...’”

“It’s fine, I understand. But I really have thought about it, way before I brought it up to you, and the answer is very much yes.”

Liam grins. “I guess that’s settled then. Anything else, boys?” They all shake their heads. “Go ahead, Zayn.”

Zayn reaches behind him and hands over a small box. Niall tries not to rip the wrapping paper opening it, but his hands are shaky. He knows what’s inside before he pulls off the lid.

“Want me to put it on?” Zayn asks, and Niall nods.

Carefully, Zayn snaps the bands together around Niall’s wrist, and the watch-that-isn’t-really-a-watch beeps to life. Seconds later, there’s four other echoing beeps across the room.

“Welcome to the team.”

*

Niall moves in a couple weeks later.

He doesn’t have to, it’s not mandatory that they all live in the same place to work together. But it does make it easier, and Niall wasn’t exactly in love with his old apartment.

He spends so much time at the Burrow anyways, Niall doubts it’ll be a terribly drastic change to get used to. Plus, as Harry reminded him with a wink, the neighbours are pretty great.

They make up a room for him on the top floor, the one with the trapdoor going up to the roof at the end of the hallway. Niall expects he’ll be using it quite a lot. He loves the Burrow in its entirety, but the rooftop is by far his favourite spot.

He’s never felt quite right in his bedroom if the bed wasn’t made up. He’s not sure why exactly, he knows he’s been raised with a good appreciation for neatness, but it’s a little more than that. There’s almost a sort of sacredness to it, with how it’s your very own space, more than anything else in your room. Even if you’re staying over at someone else’s place for a bit, the main thing you need is some place to sleep, and the rest is details.

He’s already changed into pajamas, brushed his teeth in the bathroom he’ll be sharing with Harry and Liam’s toothbrushes. Beatrice is set up in the corner with the litterbox, her little wheel, and fresh water. The tank of crickets is there too, up on a table at the far side of the room near the door. It’s strange, but he’s come to enjoy the sounds so much that it’s hard to sleep without them.

Niall sits next to the stack of sheets on the mattress. He unfolds them carefully, starting with the pillows. It almost feels like he’s christening his space; cementing the fact that this really is going to be Niall’s room from now on.

The bed sheet is lovely, all different swirling shapes of soft sky blue, granny apple green, and buttercup yellow. It looks like all the best bits of summer rolled into one gently abstract painting. It probably should be an eyesore, but somehow it isn’t. Liam took Niall to the shops to pick it out the day before and insisted on paying for it as a special welcoming gift.

Niall pulls it out of its plastic wrapping and remembers that it’s a fitted sheet. His folks were never very fond of those and Niall hasn’t even handled one before. Still, he doesn’t think it’d be much of a problem.

He gets the top corners over the mattress all snug without any issues and shakes his head. This is easy. He can’t imagine why Bobby once called fitted sheets ‘an abomination’ under his breath when an ad came up for them on TV.

Then Niall goes to tuck in one of the bottom corners, and he frowns. There’s not enough sheet. He snatches up the packaging and searches for some indication that it’s the wrong size. But no, it clearly states it’s for a double, and that’s what Niall has. They don’t make different kinds of doubles, so he must be doing it wrong somehow. There aren’t any instructions on the package, and Niall briefly considers googling for some on his phone, but disregards it immediately.

 _It’s just a sheet_ , he tells himself. _I’m going to be up against much bigger and badder things now that I’m on the team. I can definitely handle one piece of fabric_.

He decides that he tucked too much into the top, so he tries to pull up one of the corners a few inches, but the whole thing snaps back, leaving only one corner tucked in now.

Niall narrows his eyes and rolls up his sleeves. Right, okay. Bit trickier than he originally thought. Perhaps he has to tackle this like some sort of training exercise.

Fifteen minutes of fumbling around later, Niall’s huffing and puffing in a sweaty heap in the middle of the bed where he’s been temporarily incapacitated by the sheet, which is completely untucked now. It hasn’t really got the better of him though - Niall’s just decided to take a breather, and the sheet just so happens to be wrapped around him.

There’s the soft sound of knuckles rapping against the door, and Niall turns his face as best he can to see Zayn peering in, also in his PJs. He blinks slowly for a long moment as he surveys the room and Niall, like he’s not quite sure what he’s seeing.

Then he starts laughing, so much so that he has to clutch onto the door for support. Niall huffs and blows a tuft of hair off his forehead. He’s not really annoyed, though. He loves when Zayn laughs like that, even if it’s at the expense of Niall’s own dignity. If Niall could see himself now, he’d probably be laughing too.

“In need of some assistance, there?” Zayn asks, wiping his eyes. Niall can’t tell if he’s actually tearing up or just goofing. Zayn’s eyes have always been bright and shimmery, like looking into the reflection of a lake on a full moon. Could just be that.

“No, I do not,” Niall says and tries to stand up to prove he cannot be defeated by a mere bedsheet. But it’s all tangled around his legs, and all he can manage is some awkward flopping around.

“Maybe just a little,” Niall amends. “Reckon I could get out if I wanted to, but it’s been a long day and I’m pretty tired. You know how it is.” He shrugs though the sheet.

“Yeah, I can see that.” Zayn reaches the foot of the bed and runs a hand through Niall’s hair.

That feels nice, Niall thinks, but, “Ugh, don’t. I’m all sweaty,” is what he says aloud.

Zayn shrugs. “S’alright, I don’t mind.” He eyes Niall carefully though, like he’s checking to see if Niall really does mind, if it’s making him uncomfortable. Niall flashes his teeth so he knows it’s chill. “You want out of your cocoon now?”

Niall does, even if it means Zayn’s going to stop playing with his hair.

It turns out Zayn doesn’t have much room to judge, because after barely five minutes of trying to wrangle the sheet onto the mattress together, he’s swearing in exasperation too.

But they do eventually manage to get it fitted properly over all four corners of the mattress.

Niall flops down on the bed and covers his face in a pillow. “God, that was ridiculous.”

“Hey, we all have our weaknesses.” Zayn says solemnly. “Fitted sheets are just one of those things that get the best of even the best of us.”

Niall chuckles. “Yeah, that’s probably true. Thanks for helping me out.”

“Always,” Zayn promises. He picks up the comforter from the floor and spreads it over Niall. “There, now it looks like a proper bed.”

“Mmm.” Niall wiggles beneath the blankets. “Feels like one too, you should try it out.”

“Yeah?” Zayn smiles softly as he tugs back the blankets and settles himself on the other side. “You were right,” he says after a while.

“I was?”

“Yeah.” Zayn wiggles around and pulls the covers up to his chin. “I feel snug as a bug in a rug right now. Would probably stay here forever if I could.”

“You and your bugs,” Niall tuts. “Why don’t you, then?”

“What, stay forever? Be a bit impractical, I suppose. The world would probably require my services eventually.”

Niall chuckles. “Yeah, maybe. Could just stay the night, though.”

“Could,” Zayn agrees, even though Niall knows the offer is a little silly, with Zayn living in the same house and all.

Niall reaches out towards the bedside lamp. Zayn nods, and he switches it off, blanketing them in a comfortable darkness.

“My feet are cold,” Niall mutters after a while.

“Really? It’s so cozy in here, though.”

“But they are, see?” He finds Zayn’s feet under the covers and wiggles his toes between them.

“What the-” Zayn shudders but makes no effort to move away. “It’s like you have ice cubes for toes. I can literally feel you leeching the heat out of me.”

Niall laughs and starts to pull his feet away, but despite all his complaining, Zayn has his ankles wrapped around him. Niall smiles into his pillow.

“Hey, Niall?”

“Yeah?”

Zayn reaches across the bed to squeeze his hand. “I’m just, I’m glad you’re here. I wanted you to know that.”

Niall squeezes back. “I’m happy to be here, too.” Zayn’s other hand drifts up till it’s resting against Niall’s cheek, and he tries not to shiver at the sensation. It’s hard to tell sometimes if the little jolts of affection he feels around Zayn are due to his powers or just Niall’s feelings.

“You’re just, you’re so great, Ni,” Zayn continues. “You always look out for everyone, you’re the most amazing listener ever, and you always have a knack for making everyone feel better just being around them. You’re just, you’re so _good_.”

“Aw, shucks,” Niall chuckles. Distantly, he wonders if Zayn can feel the heat rising on his face. “Thanks Zayno, I do try.”

“No.” Zayn shakes his head vehemently. “You don’t try, dove, you just are.”

Niall’s not sure when Zayn started calling him that, but he doesn’t ever want him to stop. He covers Zayn’s hand and instead of squeezing, he runs his thumb lightly over the back of Zayn’s wrist. He doesn’t have words to convey how much he cares for Zayn, and he hopes the softness of his movements contains everything he can’t quite say.

“Goodnight, Z,” he finally says, whispering because he doesn’t feel anything louder has a place with them right now.

“Have a good sleep, Niall,” Zayn whispers back. “You’ll need it for training tomorrow.”

Niall tries not to groan. Liam said he would make up a personalized training program for Niall, and Louis gave Niall quite a sympathetic look in the hallway right after. Niall still hasn’t decided whether it was genuine or just teasing.

*

Everyone shows up for his first day of official training. Turns out that they often work out in pairs or sometimes all at once, because developing their skills working together is just as important as honing their abilities individually.

Harry slings a bag off his shoulder and starts handing out colourful mismatched body suits that he insists everyone wear, just this once.

“Come on,” he whines. “Think of it like our secret club initiation!”

“Nobody else is being initiated,” Liam points out, but Harry pouts until everyone puts them on. Niall doesn’t dare ask where on earth he got them.

“I’m drawing the line at leg warmers, though,” Louis warns, casting a dubious glance inside Harry’s bag.

Harry rolls his eyes and pulls them out. “Don’t be silly. I only have the one pair and they’re _not_ for sharing.”

They don’t get into the rigorous training Niall had been expecting from Liam, not at first anyway. Liam had asked for a medical history and worked hard to incorporate all of Niall’s strengths and weaknesses into his plan, so he’s expecting something much more involved than just flying around.

The resulting training regime Liam came up with took hours to develop, and the knowledge of that alone will probably be enough to guilt Niall into sticking with it, even when he’s sure there’ll be time when he’d much rather be taking a nap or eating a whole bag of flaming hot cheetos in one sitting.

The first day takes Niall right back to drama classes in high school. Louis takes the lead for most of it, and Niall is pleased but not entirely surprised with how naturally he slips into the role.

They navigate an obstacle course over a floor of lava, step into various trust falls, compete in wheelbarrow races, and play a handful of other teamwork games Niall doesn’t know the names of. The activities culminate in building human pyramids - in trios, quartets, and finally with all five of them.

Liam, crouched in the bottom center for the last one, keeps up a running monologue about all the different ways the pyramid represents them as a unit. He’s not even panting when they finally disassemble and sprawl out over the floor together, which is more than Niall can say for himself, and he was perched on top for it (‘like our own little Christmas angel,’ Louis’d said).

“This was just some fun stuff to get warmed up,” Liam whispers, shifting so he’s speaking more directly into Niall’s ear and less directly into the back of Louis’ knee. “The real work comes after snack break.”

Zayn teases him for using ‘toddler terminology’ again, and Liam threatens to put him in time out.

After the break, Louis shows up with a large garbage bag filled with something that rattles every time it shifts.

Harry hooks his ipod up to his portable speakers, and Niall immediately recognizes the theme from Rocky.

“Gonna fly now? Really, Harry?”

“Of course, this is gonna be your song, Niall!”

“Not bloody like-” Harry yanks on Niall’s wrists, tugging him up like he wants him to dance. Either that or he’s trying to get him to mime boxing moves with him, it’s hard to tell. There aren’t any words, but that doesn’t keep Harry from singing along anyway.

He gets through most of the song before Zayn switches it off, and Louis puts on the latest Fall Out Boy album instead. Harry pouts until Liam asks him to help Louis demonstrate their first proper exercise for Niall.

“Step back,” Zayn says, tugging Niall along till they’re leaning up against the wall together. “And watch closely.”

Louis opens up the garbage bag, which is full of mostly empty plastic water bottles. He takes up an armful while Harry places himself in the middle of the room.

“Ready?” Louis asks. Harry grins, bouncing back and forth on the balls of his feet. Then Louis becomes a blur around the room and the bottles start pelting Harry at all angles. He dodges every one, and after a few rounds Louis introduces toilet paper rolls to the mix, which Harry has to catch while still evading the bottles.

Even though Louis’ tossing the objects at random, there’s a fluidity to Harry’s movements almost like he’s dancing. It’s the most graceful Niall’s ever seen him or even imagined he could be.

He shifts several times, first as a large cat Niall’s never seen before (but he learns later is a caracal) who leaps 10 feet into the air to catch a roll between his paws before landing low on the ground as a smaller house cat to avoid another bottle that whizzes over his head.

By the time they’ve gone through the whole bag, Niall only saw 3 hits land. They gather up the debris together, and then it’s Niall’s turn to stand in the middle of the room.

“The purpose of this exercise is to heighten your spatial perception and develop your reflex skills,” Liam explains. “Ideally, you want to utilize your power without relying on it completely, but we can build up to that. Now, do you want to start with the bottles or the toilet rolls? We’ll work on them in stages.”

Niall feels flushed and energized after a few sessions. Zayn counts for him and calls out how well he did at the end of each round. He does pretty well overall, and even when he doesn’t, none of them are about to make him feel poorly about it.

When Louis combined the two, Niall pictured himself on an actual mission and decided to prioritize catching the rolls. He knows he got hit by more bottles then, but in the bottles-only round he dodged all but two, which hit him at the same time.

“What kind of missions do you guys usually do?” Niall asks while they’re setting up for the next training exercise. They hadn’t gone into details much before he joined, and while Niall had filled in some of the blanks by going through the news, he’d still like to hear about it from them.

“Whatever needs doing, really? Like, obviously if a giant robot struts into town and starts knocking over building’s that’ll probably be our top priority,” Louis says. “We also do things that don’t affect the whole town. Like, if someone needs to get out of a bad situation, we can help them get everything together and move, or if someone’s lost their pet we can help track it down. Big stuff, little stuff, so long as it’s important to someone, it’s all worthwhile.”

“We’ve got something of a message board online,” Zayn says. “People asking for help, I’ll show you later.” Niall doesn’t have a chance to ask for more - about their first mission, about their worst mission, about the coolest move they ever pulled in a fight - before they start up with the next exercise.

Niall thought he’d had a taste of what training would be like working with Bucky, but that didn’t quite prepare him for everything. While he manages to find fun in nearly everything, it’s all an awful lot of work.

Niall likes to think he’s in decent shape despite his shoddy knee, but he’s pretty sure they could make it into the Olympics with all the workouts Liam’s getting them to do. Niall likes training for the most part, but there are some days it’s only slightly above unclogging shower drains on his list of least favourite activities. Those days are pretty rare, though.

*

“Figured you’d be up here.”

“Oh, hey.” Niall didn’t even hear the creak of the trapdoor opening. Zayn’s feet crunch across the gravel until he plunks down next to Niall.

“What’re you up to?”

“Just thinking.” Niall presses out the creases of his notebook and flicks away a few specks of eraser dust. “Trying to come up with a stage name, maybe.”

“Yeah? You know there’s no pressure to decide on anything right away. I mean, look at Harry. He always says he hasn’t found the perfect one, but I don’t really think he’ll ever settle on just one. It wouldn’t be like him, y’know?”

Niall nods. “Yeah, I think you’re right. He is a very changeable fellow after all.”

Zayn chuckles. “Anyways, you can take as long as you need.”

“Thanks. I do know, I just. It’s such a clear night, and I always think best when I’m close to the sky. Think I might wanna go with something from up there.” Niall gestures around them, at the endless reach of the night sky. “Up here.”

“That makes sense. The stars are quite lovely.”

“Oh?” Niall snickers. “You saying I’m lovely too, then?”

“Well, yeah.” Zayn stares at Niall like he’s being daft. “You really are, so.” He clears his throat. “Any ideas so far?”

Niall shrugs and fiddles around with the little notebook in his hands. “I dunno, there’s nothing that’s really clicked for me yet. I got some suggestions from the others, but I’m not sure how I feel about all of them.”

“Can I hear?”

Niall nods and brings the paper up closer to his face to read. “Louis said ‘Puff,’ which I know I won’t use cos he was just joking, but just the way he said it was so funny I had to write it down anyways. Harry said I could be the Teletubby Baby, but then he actually thought Moonbeam or Sunbeam would be good.” Niall frowns. “Makes me feel like I’m trying to write a love poem to myself.”

Zayn laughs. “Yeah, go on.”

“Well, they were just going through trying to list different flying things, like Cloud or Cloudy or Stormcloud. Then Wind or Gust or Breezy-”

“Easy breezy beautiful?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Niall rolls his eyes. “Bit too much of a mouthful I think. Liam also suggested Dandelion because he says I look like one?”

“He has got a point,” Zayn says. “The flower and the puffball thingy.”

“Dunno how cool that’d sound, though. I think comet might be my favourite so far, actually.” He turns to glance at Zayn, and is surprised to find him frowning. “What’s the matter? You don’t like it?”

“Oh, I-” Zayn struggles to get a neutral expression on his face, but gives up when he realizes it’s taking too long to pretend otherwise. “Sorry, not really,” he admits. “But it doesn’t matter what I think of it, you’re the one who’s gonna hear it all the time, so it’s your opinion that really matters.”

“Well, yes,” Niall concedes. “But will you tell me why you don’t like it?”

“I just… Well, comets are falling stars, right? They like, burn through the atmosphere and disintegrate before they hit earth’s surface. And just, well. I dunno,” Zayn mutters, “I just think you’re much more in the business of flying than falling, y’know?”

 _That’s not entirely true_ , Niall thinks. _I’m falling for you, aren’t I?_

Instead of confronting that train of thought, Niall rambles off some facts about the differences between comets, meteors, and meteorites, which Zayn seems to have confused somewhat.

“Comets are balls of ice?” Zayn repeats. “But aside from your feet sometimes, you’re like the warmest person I know.” Zayn covers his mouth and groans. “Ugh, sorry,” he grumbles. “I keep overthinking it and it’s none of my business to begin with.” He moves as though to get up, and Niall catches him by the sleeve.

“Hey, no, don’t go. I like hearing what you think about things. And besides, if I wanted to, I could just go ahead with one anyways. But like I said, nothing’s really clicked for me yet, so. I could use your input.”

“Alright.” Zayn nods and settles back again. “But you’ll tell me if I’m overstepping and need to shut it, yeah?”

“Okay,” Niall says, but privately he doesn’t think he could ever tell Zayn off for talking too much.

Even when Zayn’s quiet, you can tell he’s always thinking too. Niall often finds himself going out of his way to encourage Zayn to speak his mind when they’re around strangers, reminding him that’s it’s okay, that Zayn’s thoughts are worth yelling about, worth interrupting a room for.

“How did you come up with yours?”

“Well, I believe Louis and I had just finished going through our comic collections together. It was actually one of the first nights after we moved into this place, and we were playfighting a bit afterwards and at one point I was like, ‘Zap!’ and it just kind of stuck.”

Niall smiles and leans into him a little. “That’s neat. It really suits you, like it’s such a cool word all on it’s own, but it’s also literally what you do with your power?”

“Yeah, I know.” Zayn leans back into him too. “You, though, let’s see. I love the way you move through the air, it’s like. I mean, it is flying, but it’s not all erratic like a bird flapping it’s wings. It’s more light and gentle, like you’re made of air, you’re floating. Like you’re made of dust.”

Zayn makes a face. “That doesn’t sound very nice. Do you know what I mean though, when you see dust floating through the sunlight coming in from a window? But dust isn’t the nicest thing, it’s more like you’re, um. Stardust, that’s a thing, isn’t it?”

“Stardust,” Niall echoes. He likes the way it settles on his tongue. “Yeah, it is. There’s that Carl Sagan quote about how everything and everyone in the world is made up of little bits of stars.”

“Huh. That sounds pretty neat, actually. Like, for a scientific thing, it’s pretty poetic.”

“It is, yeah. In fact, I think we may have a winner, there.”

“Really?”

Niall nods. It’s gotten colder again and he shivers, running his hand over the goosebumps popping out all over his arm.

“You cold?”

Niall starts giggling. “For all that I’m supposed to be the warmest person ever, yeah.”

Zayn immediately shrugs out of his jacket and drapes it over Niall’s shoulders, but Niall doesn’t want Zayn to be cold either and insists they share. They huddle closer and have to hunch a little to fit into it together.

It’s the same leather jacket Zayn was wearing when Niall first saw him. It’s one of his favourites and he wears it a lot, even on missions. And Niall gets it, he wears it like a child would their favourite blanket; drawing from it an air of comfort and security, like he could take on the whole world with it and be just fine.

*

The date of the Jurassic Inspector’s visit finally arrives. Bucky is quieter than usual when Niall takes him out flying the night before, like he can sense something’s about to happen.

They’ve all been exceptionally attentive with him this week too. Louis even started up a game of fetch with him out of the blue. It’s the only time Niall knows of that it wasn’t brought about because Bucky nicked something of Louis’.

The Inspector, Gwen, is a short (barely eye level to Louis’ chin), sharp-eyed woman whose hair is likely on its way to grey underneath her immaculately styled hijab, unmarred by so much as a speck of dust, even with the breeze of early morning air behind her.

Harry trips over the welcome mat opening the door for her, which likely prompted her to start off by assuring them that they needn’t be too nervous. They had passed the preliminary requirements through various emails and phone calls months before, otherwise Bucky wouldn’t have remained in their care as long as he had already. This visit served primarily as a confirmation of that, to ensure that this would officially become Bucky’s permanent residence.

“I can assure you that I want what’s best for Bucky just as much as you do.” Niall’s pleased that she remembered his name, which drives her point home.

Bucky is napping upstairs when Gwen arrives, and she requests a tour of the premises before disturbing him. She doesn’t have a chart or any writing utensils with her, but she’s clearly got an excellent mental checklist.

They take her around to Bucky’s favourite hang outs, to where they feed him, and what. For the most part she directs questions to the group, but sometimes she’ll ask them to clarify things individually. While some of the questions are unexpected in their inquisitivity, they manage to find answers for all of them.

Gwen raises an eyebrow when they show her Bucky’s flight harness. She isn’t disapproving though, only surprised.

“It’s not… unheard of,” she admits. “But it is difficult. Flying with them requires a strong bond between dinosaur and rider. They aren’t known for letting just anybody up there. Mind, most people who’ve attempted it may not have had the best intentions. I’ll spare you the details on the gentleman we caught a few years ago who’d been trying to start a rodeo with pterosaurs.” She wrinkles her lip in disgust.

“Do you have any dinosaurs of your own, Mrs. Gwen?” Liam asks suddenly.

Gwen smiles at him. “Most of the creatures I work with live in sanctuaries, so I wouldn’t say any of them belong to any one person. Although,” Her eyes soften at the edges. “There is one, a leptoceratops- Oh, they’re a bit like a small triceratops,” she adds at their blank expressions. “I raised her, Kalila, from an egg, and I have to say I’ve grown quite fond of her over the years. She used to nap in my lap when she was a baby. Still tries sometimes, if I let her. I try not to have favourites, mind.” She dismisses the subject with a wave of her hand and moves on to the next topic on her list.

Niall certainly hadn’t expected to learn so much today, but Gwen offers just as much information as she requests, if not more. He’s feeling more at ease than he thought he would by the time they run into Bucky, who wakes up from his nap just as they reach the roof and waddles on up to join them.

He lets out a soft cooing sound when he sees Gwen among them. It’s the one he seems to make when he’s feeling uncertain about something but not quite afraid. Gwen doesn’t say a word, just watches him calmly without meeting his eyes. Eventually, Bucky decides that she must be a new friend and starts hopping excitedly around them, eyes fixed on the harness Gwen’s still holding. He doesn’t come close to knocking Gwen over, even when she’s near enough to touch, which is far more considerate than he’s been with any of them.

Gwen asks them to put the harness on him. She remarks approvingly how he doesn’t shy away from their hands at all. He’s so wiggly with excitement, though, that it still takes several minutes to get him into the thing.

At this point, a flight demonstration seems necessary. Louis lifts up Niall’s hand for him before anyone can speak up. Niall rolls his eyes, but he was going to volunteer anyways. They can all fly with Bucky by now, but Niall’s been the one responsible for Bucky at the start, and he’s going to be the one to do it now. He swallows down the nervousness that suddenly bubbles up in his throat. He’s fine, he’s done this loads before and he’s good at it. It’s just that there wasn’t this much pressure riding on any flight before, not even in the beginning.

He slides up into the dip of the saddle, runs his fingers along the familiar bony crest rising up over his head. Gwen climbs on behind him when he’s settled in, and Niall checks to see that she’s secure. Bucky only seems vaguely interested in the second rider, just clucks at Niall to get going.

“Fifteen minutes flying wherever you want,” Gwen instructs. “No fancy tricks, please. These glasses are brand new, and I’d rather not dock you any points for losing them.”

Niall huffs out a chuckle and guides Bucky to the edge of the roof. “See you soon, guys,” he calls out over his shoulder. His voice only trembles a little, and then they’re off.

They loop around the house a couple times before gliding out towards the river. Bucky flies beautifully, flapping his wings occasionally, long lazy strokes that carry them along the air currents.

Bucky responds to Niall’s commands as though it’s muscle memory, like he’s reacting to Niall’s thoughts before he has a chance to fully turn them into action. Niall tilts his head back, letting the sunlight tickle through his hair.

He almost forgets Gwen is with them, but eventually she taps him on the shoulder. Time’s up, and they make their way back to the rooftop where the others are waiting. The landing is graceful, barely jarring them an inch when they touch down. It’s a far cry from the crash landings of the early days.

Niall slides off and offers a hand to Gwen, but she waves it away. “I’m good, kid. Been doing this on my own for longer than you’ve even been alive.” She climbs off slowly and cracks her back when her feet hit the ground. Bucky’s being very well-behaved, holding perfectly still until they both disembark.

Gwen raises a hand to press along his side and walks slowly over until she’s standing right in front of his head. Niall isn’t sure why, but he takes a few steps back. Somehow, this doesn’t feel like it concerns anyone else right now. Gwen’s making steady eye contact, but Bucky doesn’t shy away from it. Slowly, she reaches out a hand and places it over his forehead. Golden yellow glows warmly from beneath her palm. Bucky shivers and closes his eyes.

Niall holds in a gasp. He isn’t the only one. Harry elbows Louis in the ribs, and he closes his mouth with a loud snap. Luckily, it’s not enough to disrupt the connection between Gwen and Bucky. A few minutes tick by before Gwen finally pulls away and Bucky shakes his wings out, back to his usual self.

Gwen turns to face them, hands clasped behind her back, and everyone holds their breath. This is it.

“Well, boys. I can honestly say I’ve never met a happier Pteranodon. I’d say he’s even better off than some of the ones at a few multi-million dollar aviaries I’ve inspected. Therefore, I am pleased to announce that Bucky will remain in your care indefinitely.”

It’s all everyone can do not to completely explode with happy relief. Zayn yanks Harry up off his feet in a spinning hug, and Liam lets out a whoop and wraps the person nearest to him (Niall) in the squishiest of hugs.

Bucky picks up on the excitement too and bounces over to join them. He noses his way under Louis’ elbow with a happy chittering sound.

Gwen looks amused. “He thinks you’re hilarious, by the way.”

“Who, me?”

Gwen nods. “I imagine you two have more in common than you think.” Louis hesitantly scratches over the top of Bucky’s beak and a tongue snakes out and over his arm. Louis makes a face, but doesn’t pull away.

Gwen clears her throat to get their attention and brings out papers for them to sign that officially name them as Bucky’s caregivers. “That’ll be all for now. I’ll send along a copy of the write up from today later this week, and I will of course be returning for annual check-ins to ensure everything’s still up to date,” she reminds them. “But I’ve got another appointment this afternoon, so I’d best be off now.”

They thank her profusely as they lead her back to the entryway. No one says anything about the way Louis’ scratching Bucky under his chin now.

“I must say,” she pauses at the door and fixes them all with a knowing look. “I think Bucky’s very lucky to have found a home amongst such uniquely talented individuals.”

Nobody says a word, neither confirming nor denying. Gwen winks. “Don’t worry. The specifics of the conversation between Bucky and I won’t make it out of this house. Best of luck to you all.”

She leaves them with her card in case they ever need to contact her directly. Once she’s gone, they give Bucky the biggest, smelliest fish he’s ever had. They bought it the day before, hoping it wouldn’t have to be used as a parting gift instead. Bucky tries to swallow it whole, but he can’t, so he carries it off to his nest to savour in privacy.

“What say we go out for our own celebration tonight?”

They head to their favourite Thai restaurant, which happens to be having a buffet special that night. They order a couple pitchers of margaritas with their food, and Liam proposes a toast.

“To everything and everyone responsible for bringing Bucky to us. Our lives just wouldn’t be the same without him.”

“Here, here,” Louis chimes in. “And to Bucky, for bringing Niall into our lives.” He squeezes Niall’s arm. “I’m glad you’re part of the club now, even if you did dump me in the lake that one time.”

Niall snorts and presses his face into Louis’ shoulder, as much in fondness as well as a means to stave off all the attention. “Never gonna let go of that, are you?”

“Nope.” Louis clinks their glasses together, and everybody joins in. It’s not long before they start feeling pleasantly tipsy, and it’s only natural to go clubbing afterwards.

The club is packed, and apparently it’s ‘80s disco themed night. Harry wishes he had known about it before, because he’s got several outfits back home that would’ve been perfect for it and would’ve guaranteed them a prize in the costume contest, too.

They make their way to one of the booths in the back, where it’s a little less rowdy. Louis orders two rounds of shots, and it gets a little more rowdy.

Niall feels giddy, not just with drink, but with his friends and his life with them. He finds himself giggling most of the time, which isn’t unusual for him, but then he starts floating without realizing it, which is a bit unusual.

He only rises a few inches off his seat before somebody notices.

“Niall!” Louis covers his mouth and points to the space between Niall’s bum and the seat.

“Oh!” Niall promptly sits down again. “I didn’t even mean to, sorry.”

Liam waves it off. “It’s fine dear, just don’t want to be fishing you out of the rafters later.”

They decide to keep an eye on him, just in case. Niall doubts it’ll happen again, he thinks he just got lost in how deeply comfortable he felt in the moment, but he doesn’t protest. He hadn’t planned on spending any time away from them tonight anyways.

Harry ends up carrying Niall around a fair bit, which Niall is surprised to find he doesn’t actually mind. Instead, he smiles into Harry’s shoulder as he spins them around and sings along to whatever’s playing. Niall joins in, even though he can barely hear himself over everything else.

A slow song starts up that Niall instantly recognizes as the main one from the end of _Dirty Dancing_. Harry’s eyes widen, excited, as he recognizes it too.

“Yes,” Niall says, before he can ask.

They make their way out of the main part of the crowd. Louis whoops, and Niall doesn’t have to look to see he’s already got his phone out. They boogie around each other like dorks. Probably don’t get any of the original choreography even close, but they don’t really care; having fun is the main thing.

Then Harry’s galloping back towards the others for the only move that really matters. Niall dashes towards him and soars into the air. He feels Harry’s fingers tighten around his waist, and he staggers back a little, as though he really did catch Niall’s full weight out of the air.

Niall can hear their friends cheering below, and he can’t help but laugh out a “Wee!” as Harry spins round in a circle.

It’s almost a shame they hadn’t cleared out a spot in the middle of the dancefloor. Theirs was probably one of the more impressive lifts of the night.

Then Harry’s dropping Niall down into his arms and Niall finds himself being handed off to someone else.

“Here Zayn, have a Niall.”

“Huh?” Zayn sounds confused, but he’s instinctively got his arms wrapped around Niall so he doesn’t drop. Another song starts up, some slow ballad that Niall definitely knows but can’t remember the name of.

“Hey.” He taps Zayn on the nose to get his attention, even though he didn’t actually lose it. “Does this mean you’re gonna dance with me after all?” Zayn had waved him away when Niall asked earlier, said he didn’t dance.

Zayn rolls his eyes, but he starts swaying back and forth, begrudgingly at first, like Niall’s asking him to walk through coals or something equally difficult and unpleasant. Niall giggles and tips his face into the side of Zayn’s neck.

He smells so good. Like warmth, and familiarity, and home. Niall sighs. He loves Zayn so much, he doubts there’s anything else in the whole world that could make him feel so content.

“You’re just the best, you know that?” Niall says out loud, tilting back to look at Zayn.

“Me?” Niall nods and reaches out to cradle Zayn’s face between his hands, just so he doesn’t forget who Niall’s talking about.

“Yes, you. You’re so thoughtful, and kind, and good, and you’re just - you’re so beautiful too, like I’m pretty sure these cheekbones alone should be illegal.”

Zayn grins, clearly amused. “Please Niall, I’m blushing.”

Niall frowns, because maybe Zayn only thinks it’s the liquor that’s making Niall say this, but he’s very serious. “I’m serious, Zayn.” Niall squishes his cheeks to emphasize this, except this makes Zayn look ridiculous and Niall can’t help but start giggling. He lets go of Zayn’s face, which he probably should’ve done sooner.

Zayn’s eyes are twinkling, even more than usual, Niall thinks. “Do you have any idea how dear you are?” Zayn asks, and Niall’s heart flutters something awful. “Speaking of things that ought to be illegal.”

Niall doesn’t even bother trying to hide his blush. At this point, Zayn already knows it’s there.

“Seriously,” Zayn continues. “I’ve seen Harry turn into the tiniest, fluffiest, most adorable wide-eyed kitten you could possibly imagine, and he’s got nothing on you.”

“Oh, hush.” Niall always feels like melting whenever cute people call him cute. It’s honestly the worst. Zayn just winks, because he probably knows this.

Another song starts up that’s a lot more upbeat, something that calls for more than just the swaying as the crowd jostles them apart. Apparently that’s the limit of Zayn’s dancing ability (for now, at least - Niall’s decided he’ll make a ridorkulous, carefree dancer out of Zayn yet), and he sets Niall down on his feet.

“I’m going back to the booth for a bit. Wanna stay here and shake your tail feathers or whatever?”

Niall pauses, because he’d actually love to go back and cuddle with Zayn in the booth for a bit. But he’s buzzing with energy, and he doubts he’d be able to stop fidgeting, no matter how much he worried about it annoying Zayn.

“Yeah, I’ll come join you after a couple songs!” Niall promises.

He recognizes the next song, even though he hasn’t heard it since he was a little kid. Whenever it started playing on the radio, his parents would stop whatever they were doing to dance along to it, and Niall can’t help but feel obligated to carry on the tradition.

He finds himself rushing into the crowd, just slightly past the center of it, where he can feel the rhythm of the music pulsing around him while still feeling close enough to the sidelines that he doesn’t feel trapped. He stays there for the next song and a half, and then he hears a familiar voice calling him.

“Niall? Is that you?”

Niall spins and tries to pinpoint the source of the voice amidst the sea of people. Suddenly, there’s a hand at his elbow and someone’s tugging him out from the middle of the hubbub.

“I thought that was you.” Jessi’s smiling warmly. “Haven’t seen your face in a while.”

Niall beams and wraps him in a hug. “God, I know! It’s so great to see you! I’m sorry it’s been so long,” Niall gushes, and in his pleasantly smashed state of mind, he doesn’t consider that the conversation could easily be continued outside of this very, very long hug. “I’m actually moved out of that old neighborhood now, and I even get wifi in my new place! So much has been going on with my life, Jessi, you wouldn’t believe it! Are you here with anyone?”

Jessi chuckles and pulls back half a step, politely ending the hug. “Yeah, my sister just got engaged.” He tilts his head back towards the churning mass of people. “She’s with her girlfriend, er, _fiance_ , back there with our other friends.”

“That’s so great, tell her congrats for me!”

“Will do. So, I take it things have been going pretty well for you too?”

“Yes.” Niall nods enthusiastically, and it tips him off balance again. Jessi reaches out to steady him, and Niall leans into him. “Thanks.” Niall laughs off his clumsiness and concentrates on keeping himself rooted to the ground even as all the lightheartedness in his heart threatens to bubble over. “Things have been good for me, Jessi. Really good…” Niall trails off, spotting Zayn pushing through the crowd a few feet away.

He looks relieved when he makes eye contact with Niall. Probably been searching for him, as Niall realizes he meant to go find him a few songs ago now. Then Zayn takes in the rest of the picture, of Niall’s face red with laughter and clinging to Jessi, who’s still smiling down at him.

Something in Zayn’s face shuts down and without a word, he disappears back into the crowd again. Niall frowns.

“Sorry, um. I should probably go, I think my friends are heading out soon.”

“That’s alright, I should be getting back to mine as well.” Jessi hugs Niall once more. He’s a good deal taller than him, taller even than Harry, but he’s one of those considerate tall folks who bends down so Niall doesn’t have to go all the way up on tiptoe. “It was nice to see you again. I’m glad things have been good for you.”

“Thanks, you too. I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

Niall follows Zayn’s path through the crowd until he reaches the bar on the other side, but there’s no sign of him. He gazes over the heads of the people behind him, searching for a glimpse of that lavender pink hair, but to no avail. He considers checking the bathrooms, but if Zayn’s in there, Niall might as well wait for him with the others.

Niall makes his way back to the booth and slides in next to Liam. Liam wraps an arm around Niall, tucking him into his side without glancing away from the conversation between the others. Louis and Harry are engaged in a peaceful debate over which of the three manchilds that tried to take over the city in the past few months had the worst plan. It’s a tough call.

“How you doing, bub?” Liam asks, leaning down to speak softly to Niall. Niall hums and breathes him in. Liam’s wearing a scent that reminds Niall of coming home to freshly baked gingerbread cookies after school. When Bobby felt a little restless, he always liked to bake up a storm, especially around Christmas.

“I’m alright,” Niall mutters. “Bit tired, I think. Is Zayn still in the loo?”

Liam shakes his head. “Nah, he just left actually.”

“Oh?” Niall’s stomach plummets, but it’s got nothing to do with the alcohol.

“Yeah, said something about needing the walk home to clear his head.” Liam shrugs. “Why, is something the matter?”

“No, it’s nothing.” Niall disguises his nerves with a yawn. “Was just wondering, is all.”

Eventually, they pay off their tabs and call a cab.

Niall wraps his arms around himself as he stumbles onto the sidewalk and tells everyone he’s feeling cold. Something feels off, about the way Zayn rushed out without speaking to Niall even though it looked like he’d been searching for him. They’d been having fun, and Niall had been looking forward to sitting in the booth with him after he’d wound himself down.

His gut feels stone-heavy with anxiousness and uncertainty. Niall doubts he’s in any danger of floating away right now, not even if someone paid him to.

No one else seemed to think anything of Zayn’s early departure, and Niall doesn’t want to spoil their good moods. He’s not even sure why he’s so off about it; it’s not as though they fought or anything. It almost feels like they did, though.

Niall scooches into the window seat when the cab comes and spends the ride home staring quietly out the window. He tracks the moon as it moves through the sky alongside them.

He must drift off at some point, because he opens his eyes to Harry shaking his shoulder.

“C’mon, Nialler. We’re home now.”

Niall notes Zayn’s Doc Martens tossed to the side of the entryway when they tumble through the door. It’s a relief to know he made it back alright, though it does little to quell his anxiousness.

Liam and Louis are starting up the stairs. Niall moves to follow them, but Harry catches him by the wrist.

“You need to drink some water first, or you’re gonna have one hell of a headache in the morning.”

Niall grunts and lets Harry drag him into the kitchen. He pulls the water jug from the fridge and pours two tall glasses, setting the fullest one in front of Niall. He realizes Harry probably won’t let him go until he drinks the whole thing, so Niall settles down in the chair and has a sip.

Harry takes the seat across from him and peers at Niall over the rim of his own glass. Uh oh. Niall doesn’t like that look.

“Something’s upset you, hasn’t it?” Harry asks. Niall’s shoulders slump in a half-hearted shrug. He sets down the water.

Niall reckons there isn’t a bad mood in the world sly enough to sneak past Harry.

“It’s nothing important,” he mutters. That much at least, he’s pretty sure of.

It’s not enough for Harry. “If it’s making you upset, it’s certainly something. Come on, Niall. I know something’s been up with you lately. Talk to me.”

Niall’s eyes start stinging, and he rubs them as subtly as he can. Backstabbing bastards. He’s been holding up so well all this time, only to lose it now. Harry touches Niall’s arm, and his thumb sweeps along the back of Niall’s wrist. His touch is so gentle, the tears spill over and stream down Niall’s cheeks.

“Oh, Niall.” Harry doesn’t let go of his hand. “What’s making you cry?”

Niall sniffles. “Um, do you remember Cute Stranger, that stupid crush I told you about months ago?”

“Yeah, wh-”

“I did actually get to meet him properly,” Niall says quickly, knowing he has to get it all out in one go before he loses the nerve to try again. “We became friends, and I still, I’ve still got feelings for him.” Niall sniffles again. “At first, I thought it was just like, residual stuff from before, and I tried not to think about it, only it feels stronger now than it ever was back then, and I-” Niall breaks off to hide his face in his hands. “I don’t know what to do.”

Harry’s hand disappears from Niall’s, and his chair squeaks as he climbs out of it. Then there’s the tickle of long hair brushing against Niall’s shoulder as Harry kneels down next to him.

“Niall,” Harry hedges, and Niall tenses his shoulders. His face is still hidden, but Harry can probably see the red blotching over his arms. Niall has a tendency to blush all over, which is quite unfortunate. There’s no way he’s going to get out of this before Harry gets to the bottom of it.

Harry tugs at his hands, gently pulling them away from his face, Niall slowly tilts his head up to meet Harry’s, and it’s- It’s okay. There’s nothing remotely like disgust in Harry’s eyes, nor pity. His face is just open and accepting.

“It’s Zayn, isn’t it?”

Fuck, that’s it. Niall chokes out a yeah and collapses into Harry’s side. He isn’t sure how, but somehow Harry maneuvers himself into the chair, pulling Niall into his lap and holding him tight within the span of a few seconds.

“Shh, sh. It’s okay,” Harry assures him, rubbing his hands over Niall’s shoulder blades. He lets Niall get out everything he’s been keeping cooped up inside for so long, until it softens down to worn out sniffles.

“Here.” Harry hands him the glass of water, and he gulps down the rest of it. “Niall, have you ever talked to Zayn about any of this?”

Niall shakes his head vehemently. “No. I don’t know how he’d feel, and…” He sniffles again, remembers what brought all of this to the surface again. “I’m pretty sure he’s upset with me. That’s why he left early tonight.”

Harry’s head tips back, so he definitely wasn’t expecting that. “Why, what happened?”

So Niall tells him about running into Jessi at the club, how Zayn took off after seeing the two of them, and how Niall feels like it must be his fault somehow, even though he still can’t figure out what he did.

Harry’s quiet for a long moment, slowly turning over Niall’s words. “Oh!” he says at last, and Niall almost expects to see a glowing lightbulb over his head when he glances up. “You never told Zayn you always wanted to run into him when you went to the coffee shop, did you?”

Niall tries to protest, but, well. Harry’s not wrong. That wasn’t the only reason Niall went there, but it was certainly one of them.

“No, of course I didn’t tell him.”

“Well, perhaps you should. Because I’m pretty sure the only reason Zayn ever went back to that place was because of you.” Niall turns to look at him, certain Harry wouldn’t be taking the piss about this. He blinks back at Niall, face completely sincere. “And I think,” he continues, “Zayn may have just gotten the impression that you were only interested in seeing the barista the whole time.”

“What?” Niall splutters. “But that’s-” It can’t be, it’s ridiculous. It doesn’t make sense, unless Zayn likes Niall back.

Harry watches him carefully, like he can see Niall’s entire thought process. “Exactly. So, tell him.”

“But what if it’s wrong? What if he never felt the same way, and then I tell him and ruin everything, and the whole team-”

Harry cuffs him on the ear, like a kitten batting a ball of yarn. “C’mon, Niall. You’ve got to know that Zayn cares about you. You’re important to him, you’re important to all of us, and whatever Zayn feels or doesn’t feel isn’t going to change any of that. And I know he wouldn’t want you feeling this way, especially if just telling him would make you feel better. And like, yeah okay, worst case scenario? He doesn’t feel the same and it gets a little awkward for a bit. But I for one am not about to let romantic feelings ruin anything forever. You’ve got my word it won’t effect the team.”

Niall chokes out a laugh and rubs his eyes. “Yeah, alright. I’ll talk to him.”

Harry pats his back. “Glad to hear it. Now, how’s about we get some shut eye?”

Niall nods and they slowly untangle themselves from the chair and each other. The crying took a lot out of Niall, and he stumbles on his feet. Harry steadies him, and he lists gratefully into his side.

“Y’know,” Harry says, “You’re kind of the perfect height to rest my arm on.”

Niall snorts and wraps an arm around Harry’s waist. “Yeah, yeah.” He closes his eyes and Harry starts leading them towards the stairs. Niall’s pretty sure he could fall asleep on his feet if Harry wasn’t there.

“Haz,” Niall mumbles when they’re halfway up the first set of steps. “Think you should carry me the rest of the way, ‘m not gonna make it.”

Harry chuckles and bends down so Niall can climb onto his back. “Wanna just bunk with me tonight?”

“That’d be nice,” Niall says, and immediately inhales and chokes on a strand of hair.

Harry chuckles at his misfortune, and Niall would curse him out for it, but he’s too afraid to open his mouth again. He settles for humming his displeasure into Harry’s ear until he finally drifts off between one step and the next.

Niall is rudely awakened again a few minutes later, when Harry drops Niall on the bed and hits him in the face (albeit accidentally) with a pair of pajamas. Niall changes quickly, intent on going back to sleep for good this time.

“Hey, thanks for all the, y’know...”

“Of course, Ni, anytime!” Harry’s expression suddenly grows serious. “Besides, nobody puts baby in a corner.”

Niall snorts and crawls into bed. He’s halfway under the sheets when he realizes Harry’s still lingering next to the bed.

Niall squints at him. “What is it?”

“Well,” Harry bites his lip. “I was actually hoping I could sleep shifted tonight, would you mind?”

“Oh, no that’s fine. It’s your bed Harry, you can sleep however you want in it. Not like I’ve got allergies or anything, anyways.”

Harry beams at him, and then the mattress dips as a lion, one of Harry’s favourites, clambers up and curls up next to him.

“Night, Haz,” Niall yawns.

Harry starts purring in response, and Niall closes his eyes. It’s a better lullaby than even crickets.

*

Niall wakes up with his face pressed against a dense wall of fluff. He tries to move, but it’s a little difficult with a large, heavy paw curled around him. After wiggling about for a few moments, he rolls over onto his back so he’s not mushed into Harry’s side anymore.

Even though Niall must’ve rolled over into the dip of Harry’s side sometime during the night, Harry’s still only taking up a little more than half the bed. He’s always so mindful about the space he takes up, no matter the size of his form.

The events of last night slowly drift to the forefront of Niall’s thoughts and he sighs. Right, gotta have that talk with Zayn today. Strangely, he feels a sort of peace thinking about it now, not quite so much dread as before. Not yet, anyways. He supposes it is a bit hard to feel stressed when you’re cuddling with one of your best friends, though.

He can tell by his breathing that Harry’s awake, so he tugs at one of his whiskers. One eye opens and Harry squints at him, unamused.

“Morning, Harold. How’d you sleep?”

Harry gruffs, and his mouth goes wide in a yawn. Niall wonders how circus performers ever felt brave enough to stick their heads in the mouths of lions that weren’t Harry. Niall’s never been scared of him, no matter what he looks like, but he knows he would be if the lion didn’t so obviously understand every word he spoke.

The stretch of Harry’s legs push Niall towards the edge of the bed. He sits up and runs a hand through his hair and over his face.

“Suppose I should go off and find him now, yeah.”

The covers ruffle a little as Harry shifts back into his human skin. “Best to do it sooner than later. You feeling any better now?”

“Yeah, I do actually.” Niall winces at the mess of dried tears crusted around his eyes. “I think getting it out helped.” He swings his feet over the side of the bed. Harry doesn’t have slippers, probably never has a need for them. Niall wonders if he could borrow one from Zayn.

“Glad to hear it. Text me if it goes wrong and I’ll put a scoop of ice cream in your breakfast smoothie.”

Niall chuckles. “Yeah, alright.” He pauses at the door. “Actually, I think I’d like the ice cream no matter what.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “Oh, fine. Have it your way then.”

“I shall.” Niall leans against the doorframe. “I love you, Harry.”

“I know.” Harry winks. “Love you too, Niall. No romo, though.”

“No,” Niall agrees. “No romo. Well, not for you, but we’ll see how things go for me in a bit.”

Harry chuckles and waves him off. “You’ll be alright, though. Now, go on.”

*

Niall focuses on just breathing normally as he walks down to Zayn’s room. He knows the gist of what he’s got to say, and no amount of planning out a speech is going to help. He’s pretty sure if he gets too involved figuring every word out in his head, he’ll be too freaked to go on with it.

He raps lightly on Zayn’s door. It’s closed, which isn’t unusual, because Zayn likes keeping a bit of privacy. In retrospect, Niall’s kind of surprised Zayn let him stay there that first night. Out of all of them, he seems the least likely to let a stranger into his space.

“Yeah?”

“It’s me.” Silence. Niall takes another deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Can I come in?”

Zayn doesn’t answer for a long moment, and Niall reminds himself that he’s probably still drowsy from just waking up. “Um, yeah.”

He is in bed, but he’s got a book in his hands, so he’s probably been awake for awhile already, enough to reread two thirds of The Goblet of Fire.

Niall makes his way over to the bed, trying to keep his hands still at his sides. He almost wishes he brought Bea, but he knows he can’t rely on her cuteness to run interference for him all the time. This is just him and Zayn now.

Zayn’s still got the book propped up against his chest, like he’s using it to ward off things he’d rather not think about. Perhaps he already has.

“That’s an interesting choice of jams,” Zayn says. There’s a hint of mirth at the corner of his mouth, and maybe this won’t be so difficult to talk about after all.

“Oh, yeah.” Niall hadn’t even noticed that Harry’s got him swimming in his magenta onesie again. “Harry leant it to me. Ended up staying up late with him, we had a talk.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Niall feels awkward standing next to the bed, and thankfully Zayn pats the spot next to him. “Thanks. Um, there’s something I have to tell you, Zayn.”

“Okay.” Zayn finally puts the book down, with a proper book mark and not just his fingers to mark his place.

“You know how, like, I used to see you back at that cafe, before I met you?” Zayn nods, and Niall takes another breath. He can do this, he knows Zayn. He’s never actually felt uncomfortable around him before, and even now it’s really just the situation he’s nervous about. There’s nothing about Zayn that could ever scare him. “Well, I kind of, um. I really like you, Zayn.”

“Okay,” Zayn hedges, tilting his head to give Niall a funny look. “That’s not exactly news to me, though. I’m pretty fond of you, as well.”

“I-” Maybe this is going to be more difficult than Niall expected. “I know that, I just, um. I sort of felt like the way you left last night might’ve been because of me somehow?”

“Shit,” Zayn mutters, and Niall braces himself to leave. “Niall, I acted like a dick last night. I felt like I was intruding on you and that guy, from back then, and didn’t really um, want to think about that. Which I realize was stupid and rude of me, no matter how much I’d been drinking, and I’m sorry about that. He seems really nice, and I wouldn’t wish you two anything but the best if, um, you decided to get together.”

“I’m not, though,” Niall says quickly. “Into him. I mean, I certainly like him because we’re friends, but I’ve actually had my eye on someone else for a while now.”

“Oh?” Zayn’s expression is neutral. “Is it someone I know?”

Niall huffs out an awkward laugh, even though it’s not all that funny. “I think you do.” He uncurls his hands and forces himself to look right at Zayn. “Ever looked in a mirror before?”

Zayn’s eyes widen. He tries to speak, but the words take a minute to make their way out. “I, uh. You- are you sure?”

“Yeah, pretty sure.” Niall glances down at the inches between them, where they’re not quite touching. “I’ve kind of had a bit of a crush on you since like, the first time I saw you. And that was before I even _knew_ you, so, it’s. It’s grown a little since then.” He’s still watching Zayn’s hand partly curled next to Niall. His face feels a little harder to focus on right now.

“I’m not sure if you feel the same way,” Niall continues quickly, “I mean it would be pretty neato if you did, but obviously you don’t have to and I wouldn’t expect you to. I just felt like you should know, because, well. I’d rather tell you than keep it to myself anymore.” Zayn still hasn’t said anything, and Niall starts counting from ten backwards in his head.

If Zayn looks uncomfortable when he glances back up, he’ll just apologize and leave.

“I think,” Zayn says finally, and his hand bridges the gap between them to gently tug Niall’s hand out from where it’s wedged between his knees. “I think it might be ‘pretty neato,’ actually.”

Niall stares at him, and Zayn just smiles softly back. It’s okay. It’s very okay now.

He feels so overwhelmingly content that if Zayn wasn’t holding his hand, he’d probably be floating up to the ceiling by now.

Niall’s not sure who moves forward first, it’s like their lips meet between one heartbeat and the next. It’s a light kiss, slow and gentle. It feels like it’s taken a lifetime to get to this moment, with everything that’s happened since they first saw each other, and neither of them feel the urge to rush it.

Zayn’s fingers weave their way into the hair at the back of Niall’s head as they start to pull apart. He doesn’t tug, just rests his hand there like he’s holding Niall, keeping him close.

“Oh, sorry. Your hair’s all staticky now.”

“Really?” Niall giggles as he feels the top of his head. “That’s alright, you’re a little staticky yourself.”

Their not-watches choose that moment to beep into life, and they startle apart a little.

“Morning, everyone,” Liam’s voice rings out a little tinny. “We’ve got a new assignment I think you’re really gonna enjoy. Meet in the kitchen for breakfast and debriefing in 15, alright?”

They clear their throats and confirm their acknowledgment of the message. Then they’re just stuck looking at each other again.

“Breakfast?” Zayn reaches out first to poke Niall in the tummy. Niall catches his wrist and presses it close over his chest, over his heart.

“And then we save the world?”

Zayn nods and leans in to press a kiss into the corner of his mouth. “Sounds like a plan.”

 

*

The End

*


End file.
